Lg Plans To Assemble Pc Monitors, Ipo Float

LG Electronics also plans to invest $50 million in India next year, when it also intends to make its subsidiary public. Managing director of LG Electronics India Ltd K R Kim said, "We plan to come out with an IPO in the second half of next year," he said. The company plans to raise $7.5 million( around Rs 300 crore) through the IPO, details of which are being worked out.

It is targeting a sales turnover of Rs 200 crore from the IT segment for the year 2000. The company has taken over the PC monitor business in India under its portfolio from the LG liaison office in March this year and has clocked a 100 per cent growth in sales in the quarter ended June 2000. It has targeted sales of 400,000 units this year.

 

"LG India is extremely bullish about the growth prospects of its IT line of products. We have emerged as the industry leaders in the hi-end Flatron range of monitors in a span of three months. Given this high growth rate, I can foresee the IT line of products emerge as the largest segment in our portfolio," Kim said.

LG is planning to add the DVD ROM and the CD ROM player business to its existing business by October 2000. The company is also launching new products like the PC Notebook and the 17-inch Flatron monitor around the same period. It will invest $10 million on its PC monitor business which has been brought under its wing in March this year.

The company has targeted sales of 600,000 PC monitors by 2001 which will take the contribution of this segment up to Rs 600 crore in the next year. It expects to enhance its market share in this segment to 30 per cent from 27 per cent and is aiming to get a market leadership in the PC monitor segment by 2002.

To strengthen its e-commerce initiative in India, the company has launched two B2B portals -- www.lgesource.com and www.lgedealernet.com. These portals will serve as information centres for dealers and vendors.

Earlier in May, it had launched a B2C portal, lgezbuy.com. The company has generated a turnover of Rs 2 crore from the Internet shopping mall so far besides recording 4.2 million hits. LG has allocated a budget of Rs 2 crore over this promotion which will be spread over one-and-a-half month. LG has plans to hive it off into a separate entity by 2001 and has targeted Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) listing by 2003.