How do you manage to sell them at such a low price?
It is all about two things. You can sell it in limited volumes as a premium product with limited profit. Another is to sell in mass volumes with limited profit. We chose the second option.
Let us look at it like this, if we get Rs 50 as profit from 1,000 copies, the profit is Rs 50,000. But if I get Rs 5 as profit from a CD, but I am able to sell 10,000 copies, my profit is the same! In the process, by selling 10,000 pieces, we are creating brand awareness. Also, we are creating the habit of home video watching in 10,000 homes.
Is your home video market confined only to the urban centres?
No, we are selling today in rural Tamil Nadu and rural Kerala also. Our biggest successes in the south so far are two Mammootty films -- Mayavi and Rajamanikam. We sold around 4 lakh (400,000) units, that too in a regional language. Where have they gone? Every village, every town, people have bought it. In a village, a film CD is an asset because the only source of entertainment for a villager is films, and also television.
We felt all these titles are under-exploited. In Malayalam, we sold 40,000 to 50,000 VCDs and DVDs of Chemmeen in the last six months. In 25 years, it had sold only 10,000 pieces. Today, we have sold 3 lakh (300,000) units of Rajnikanth’s Basha.
Image: Attendees visit the CMC Magnetics Corp booth at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. | Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images
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