Logix Micro eyes increased revenues from Europe

Logix Microsystems, a provider of e-retailing solutions for the global automotive industry, is expecting to earn a revenue of Euro 2 million from the European market in the first year of operation. The Bangalore-headquartered company which has already established a photography studio in Brussels, Belgium as a part of its Euro 2 million expansion plan, is expecting to sign a few customers in the next two weeks.

“We made our proposals to a few automotive OEMs and large retailers, and expecting to sign some of them by the end this month. The concept of virtual car showroom is very new in Europe and Internet has not been very effectively used to sell cars in that region. Hence it is taking some time,” Sanjay Soni, MD of Logix Microsystems told Business Standard.

The studio in Brussels is now preparing the catalogues of European car models with their photographs before the launch of izmocars, the company’s flagship product. Izmocars basically helps car manufacturers and dealers to sell their products in a virtual show room using multimedia content.

The solution helps a prospective buyer to have a ‘touch and feel’ experience with the 3D pictures of the car models he intends to buy.

Soni said that the company had done proper survey before foraying into Europe, and had received a ‘very good’ response. The main focus market in Europe will be Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg (BENELUX) region other than France, Italy, UK and Germany. Apart from having its own sales steam in these places, the company is also talking a few dealer groups to be its local partners in Europe.

Automotive Solutions including izmocars and carazoo.com contributed over 90 per cent to the company’s topline of Rs 57.5 crore as reported in fiscal 2008-09. Presently, US is the largest market for the company with large customers like GM, Ford and Mitsubishi.

The demand for the company’s automotive solutions had slowed down in the US in the fourth quarter of FY09, in the wake of the global slowdown that had affected most of the sectors including automotive.

Soni however said in the current quarter (first quarter of fiscal 2009-10), he was seeing the demands again picking up in the US.

“We are seeing some turnaround happening in the US market, and this fiscal we are expecting to grow at least 40 per cent in the US,” he said. To drive further growth in the US, the company is planning to launch some new products in the coming days.

Logix runs an advanced automobile photography studio in Los Angeles, which is targeted at the American customers.

In the fiscal ended March 31, 2009, Logix posted a 9 per cent increase in net profit to Rs 13.65 crore, compared with the same period previous fiscal. Revenues during the fiscal grew 16 per cent to Rs 57.49 crore on a year-on-year basis.