Moser Baer peripherals to drive growth

As part of a diversification strategy from its core optical media business, the peripherals business of Moser Baer is aiming at more than doubling its revenues to reach Rs 200 crore in the next financial year.

The company had launched its peripherals business in September last year and grossed over Rs 90 crore in nearly 6 months.

"The results of the previous quarters have been on the lower side due to a slump in the optical disc market. We had foreseen this and put in place strategies to diversify. This year has been a year of investments which will show results in the next financial year," says Sudip De, assistant general manager (domestic marketing), Moser Baer.

"We already have a well-established brandname in the market. We do not need to convince people about the quality of our products," says De.

"We already have a 8.4 per cent market share in the pen-drive market and a slightly smaller share in the memory card market. These two segments will drive our growth in the peripherals market," he adds.

Moser Baer had forayed into peripherals with the launch of optical disk drive (ODD) "� combo drive and DVD writer. Moser Baer has launched its ODDs in India in partnership with Taiwan's Philips and Lite-On Digital Solutions Corp, christened Moser Baer-Lite-on.

Currently, the IT vertical industry (PCs and notebooks) is pegged at Rs 20,000 crore and the PC peripherals industry is worth Rs 12,000 crore.

Moser Baer plans to capture 20 per cent of the ODD market (combo drives and DVD writer) with a total market size of five lakh units per month.

The company currently imports from Taiwan and China but will soon start contract packaging of products in Taiwan.

"We also have plans to set up our own manufacturing plant for some of our products in this space, including memory cards and pen-drives. The plans have not been finalised yet, but the plant will cater to other OEMs as well," says De.

He adds, "We saw a huge potential in the solid state memory drives. We have already launched 11 products and will be rolling out more soon. We will soon launch MP3 and MP4 players along with many other products such as speakers, routers and UPS."