Nikon India targets 45% market share

Nikon India Private Limited (NIPL), a 100 percent subsidiary of Nikon Corporation aims to increase its market share to 45 per cent in the digital single lens reflex (DSLR) segment by the end of 2009 in order to achieve a double digit growth in revenue.

It aims to achieve a 35-40 percent growth in revenue by the end of this fiscal.

“We expect a lot of growth in the DSLR segment since a large bulk of people in India are shifting from compact to DSLR as in the US and China. We will be targetting a market share of close to 45 per cent in the DSLR segment by the end of 2009 and 10 per cent in the compact digital camera segment despite stiff competition from the grey market which has always been a major challenge in the Indian scenario,” said Hiroshi Takashina, the newly appointed division general manager (imaging division), NIPL on the sidelines of the launch of the Kolkata branch office. At present, NIPL enjoys a market share of 30 per cent in the DSLR segment and five per cent in the compact digital segment in the domestic digital camera market, which is officially estimated at 1.1 million units excluding the grey market.

Of this, 1.1 million units, roughly 20,000-25,000 units are DSLR and the rest are compact digital cameras.

However due to the large grey market presence in India which dominates the Indian digital camera market, the branded players lose on market share.

In the compact segment the grey market occupies close to 20-30 per cent market share while in the DSLR almost 50 per cent is enjoyed by the grey market.

Because of the heavy import duty structure, the prices of digital cameras go up by as much as 30-40 per cent in the official market estimated at around 1.1 million units and thus faced stiff competition from the grey market which offered a discount, Sajjan Kumar, general manager, sales and marketing, NIPL pointed out.

"Thus to counter this we have a planned strategy for 2009 which includes increasing regional presence, offering quality post-sale service support and expanding our distribution network, promoting the photography culture and most importantly introducing latest technology and a new innovative product line,” Takashina informed.

However, on the pricing side there would not be any revision since the company feels that its products are priced modestly across all range.