Thakral Lines Up Venture For Video Compact Disks

The $2.5 billion Singapore-based Thakral International Ltd is venturing into video compact disk (VCD) business in India. The company, which has units in Hong Kong and China, is in talks with 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros and Paramount Pictures among others for rights to reproduce on VCDs their box-office hits. Thakral, which has invested about $800 million in China, plans to set up a new company in India by early next year to produce copyrighted VCDs. It is also considering collaborating with Indian entertainment distributors for marketing its VCDs. This follows an 18-month `market testing' carried out by the company along with Sony International and Shemaroo in Mumbai whereby it released test versions of VCDs priced at Rs 420 containing Hindi blockbusters.

 

"While Sony's interest lies in promoting its VCD players in India, Shemaroo and Thakral have different motives in carrying out the testing," said Gurmukh Singh Thakral, chairman of the newly set up Indian subsidiary, Raffles Software Pvt Ltd. He denied that his company and Sony will tie up for a foray into multimedia entertainment. "The demand for video cassettes are on the wane. The market is now flooded with video CD players," he said.

The original versions of VCDs now cost around Rs 600 in India. The production of copyrighted VCDs is expected to substantially reduce the costs.

Thakral has invested $50 million in India, after kicking off operations some years ago with the distribution of Casio calculators. The group has interests in distribution (including Compaq and IBM products), property development; information technology and textiles and garments. The company has invested Rs 15 crore for its software development facility set up in Bangalore.