Panasonic eyes Rs 10,000 cr sales in 2016-17

Japanese electronics major Panasonic is looking at sales of up to Rs 10,000 crore in 2016-17 on robust mobile handset business, which is expected to contribute around 35 per cent.
"Next fiscal, we are looking at a sales figure of close to Rs 9,500-10,000 crore. This year (2015-16), we may close at around Rs 7,000 crore," said Panasonic India MD Manish Sharma.
The mobile phone business, which Panasonic re-entered last year, is now its fastest growing segment, accounting for 25 per cent of its revenue on a monthly basis.
"My target for this fiscal is around Rs 2,000 crore (from handsets). Last year, it was very less at Rs 700 crore," said Sharma.

The calculations do not include Anchor Electricals, a Panasonic group company, he added.
Sharma added that the energy vertical, which consists of storage and automotive batteries, is also seeing exponential growth.

"The focus of Panasonic in India in on now three businesses -- consumer, mobile phones and energy storage," he said.
Sharma remains optimistic of the future of its security and surveillance gadget segment.
"I'm very bullish and optimistic about this segment. We have recently launched services with Reliance Communications, which is a cloud-based security system for enterprises," he said, adding that this sector has become "very challenging" with the entry of a lot of Chinese hardware firms.

On manufacturing mobile handsets in India, Sharma said: "We are seriously considering manufacturing mobile phones in the next nine months. We are exploring the location for the next unit."
However, he did not share the investment details, saying "the business model for itself is under consideration".
Over the buzz that Panasonic may tie up with Karbonn Mobiles for handset manufacturing, Sharma said: "The owners of Karbonn Mobiles -- Jaina Marketing -- are our distributors. So, they are our national partners. We are having a dialogue with them so that we can have mutual economies of scale."
Panasonic has already come out with 4G phones in the market and is planning more launches.

India currently contributes less than two per cent of Panasonic's global sales.
Asked if this share would go up, Sharma said: "Yes. We are growing here much faster than other countries.