The company is also working on expanding its offering beyond TV to other appliances
New Delhi: German consumer electronic brand Blaupunkt is planning to export LED TV to markets such as Australia and South America, making India a hub for production, said its Managing Director Andrzej Cebrat.
The company, which operates in India through its brand licensee Super Plastronics Pvt Ltd (SPPL), is also working on expanding its offering beyond TV to other appliances here.
Besides, Blaupunkt also planning to enter into the photovoltaic products business in India after having success in the renewal energy market of Europe and teaming up with SPPL, Cebrat told PTI.
Over exports from India, he said Blaupunkt operates several factories around the world through its partners, and all are facing a similar problem over sourcing.
Its Indian partner has remained buoyant after the pandemic and SPPL is also coming up with a new TV manufacturing unit, which will be operational in the next two quarters with an installed capacity to roll out two million units per annum.
It would be a good solution for those markets, he said.
“We have a family of partners and all of them wherever you look, Australia, Americas and Europe, are having sourcing problems and we believe that a good quality of Indian production can be as well the next step of thinking of the development of export from India from SPPL factory,” said Cebrat.
He further added: “This is not only of good quality but with a good software and hardware platform. We sell by teaming up with Google. It will overcome the problems of sourcing and pricing, which is the biggest challenge today for the TV market.”
When asked about the countries where Blaupunkt would ship its India-made LED TVs, Cebrat said it has started discussions with its South American and Australian partners.
“We are planning to continue the discussions this year, when the new factory (from SPPL) is open. Then we would have the capacity to meet the demand,” he added.
SPPL is investing around Rs 100 crore to expand in its Hapur-Western UP-based factory, which will cater the demand of Blaupunkt TV for domestic and international sales.
Currently, India is the third largest market for Blaupunkt globally, where it is operating with two brand licensees. SPPL is for TV and other appliance and the other one is for its line of audio products.
“When you look at the population, a good education of India and look on the very good success stories in the market with making cars production or software, I think its future,” Cebrat said, adding, “We are looking at the global economy and we need to shift. I am not against any big company but everyone feels the same.”
Over sales of Blaupunkt TV in India, SPPL CEO Avneet Singh Marwah said it’s among the top five TV brands on online sales channels and target revenue of Rs 400 crore. It has plans to expand its offerings in the premium segment by launching more TVs in 4K, QLED and other technologies.
According to Marwah, presently the domestic value addition of Blaupunkt TV is less than 25 per cent but this will increase substantially to around 70 per cent in the next three years after Production Linked Incentive Scheme (PLI) scheme.
“We have a very successful journey with SPPL,” said Cebrat, adding, “Now we are looking for SPPL to open a new TV factory in India, which will be very modern and start production of the newly launched TVs.”
Indian economy is growing and people are willing to pay extra for a good quality product. Here people are much more aware than in other markets, accepting new technologies and demanding new platforms, having scope for further developments.
Currently, Blaupunkt through its partners operates seven manufacturing facilities around the world — Poland (for European markets), Ecuador (for South America), Johannesburg, China and India. It has an assembling unit in the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) region, which also serves the Middle East.
