LG sees fastest growth in India

LG Electronics India Limited will grow three-fold to Rs 13,500 crore (Rs 135 billion) in the next three years from its current turnover of Rs 4,500 crore (Rs 45 billion), making it as big as the parent company's operations in South Korea.

"India is the fastest growing market for our company, with sales increasing over 50 per cent. Growth has been faster than even China, although the volume of sales there is much higher. India's contribution to the company will go up from 5 per cent to 15 per cent in the next three years," said Young Chan Kim, executive vice-president, LG Inc.

China is estimated to be chipping in nearly $7 billion to LG Electronics' worldwide sales of $17 billion. The Korean market contributed $3.2 billion in 2003.

LG's brass is expected to be in India in May to discuss strategy and investments, coinciding with LG India's seventh anniversary.

Kim was in Delhi for LG's Asia strategy meet, which also played host to the country heads of the company's Asian subsidiaries. "At the meet, we reviewed our long-term plans till 2010. We have set ourselves the goal of being the top consumer electronics company in Asia by 2007," said Kim.

According to Kim, the mobile handset business is likely to drive growth in India. LG was a late entrant in the Indian GSM handset market when it launched its products in October last year. But it expects the new category to generate revenues of nearly Rs 700 crore (Rs 7 billion) by the end of 2004.

Kim said that globally new display devices like plasma and LCD TVs were finding acceptance very fast. "In 2003, the global market for these products was 7 million units of which Asia accounted for 1 million. The growth in the category has been from a very low base," he added.

When asked about the competition from the recent JV between Chinese and French TV giants TCL and Thomson, Kim said that although the combine would be the largest TV manufacturers in the world, they lacked the wide range of high technology models.

"Their presence is primarily in the low cost, conventional TV segment. The world is fast moving to new technologies and they are fairly weak there," he said.