Valsad: BPL Ltd, once the leader in the CTV market, has now dropped out of the first three slots in the CTV market share statistics, according to ORG-GFK estimates for October '02.

LG Electronics, the Korean heavyweight, now leads the market with a share of 15 per cent, followed by another Korean company, Samsung, with a market share of 13.5 per cent. Domestic company Onida is in third place with 12 per cent, while BPL is No 4 at 10 per cent.

LG has come to lead the market on the back of an aggressive marketing strategy, coupled with its huge array of reasonably priced CTV models.

Other brands in the top ten slots are Videocon with 7.3 per cent market share, followed by Sansui (part of the Videocon group) at 6.7 per cent and Philips at 6.3 per cent.

R Zutshi, vice-president of Samsung India, says Samsung's high sales were due to the success of its consumer promotions and a 22-model product line-up. The company has set an internal target of 8.5 lakh in domestic sales by the end of '02, he said.

Company officials in BPL who did not wish to be named admitted to abysmal sales in October. Surprisingly for BPL, the dip in primary sales coincided with the festive season bonanza the company had announced for the trade. It had wooed dealers by announcing a scheme to take the top 125 dealers to South Africa for the upcoming World Cup cricket finals.

An official said the decline in sales was due to production constraints in the month of October, which would be overcome.

For BPL, CTVs have been the flagship business, with annual sales crossing one million in the last three years. Industry experts say BPL may not be able to meet sales projections of 1.25 million sets in the current financial year.

The timing is unfortunate, as the CTV industry is expecting sales to touch sales of seven million units in 2002-03, up from 5.6 million last year, due to the upcoming Cricket World Cup in February.

The TPG Nambiar family, promoters of BPL, are in the midst of a financial restructuring to tackle a debt burden in excess of Rs 750 crore. It hopes to complete the exercise by early next year and be ready to tap the cricket mania.

Companies invested Rs 15-20 crore on consumer promotions in October '02. The Indian colour television companies sold nine lakh CTVs to the trade in the month of October, which was one of the best for business in recent years.