Chennai: Digital imaging products company Canon India () is soon to ink a deal with a personal computer manufacturer and a software company to increase the sales of its digital camera and printers.

The company hopes to capitalise on this tie-up as it is eyeing India's metro and major city markets. Company officials, however, are not willing to disclose more details about the proposed alliance.

Meanwhile, it is image-building time at Canon India. After making couple of wrong moves, which includes going back on promises made to the channel partners earlier, Canon India is toning up its image to capture a decent market share for its products. While the brand occupies the top slot in many Asian markets, in India it is not the case.

There won't be any going back on promises, company officials assure the channel partners. Last year Canon India appointed 300 channel partners and 1,800 resellers to cover small towns and now the company is in the process of selecting new partners to target specialised market segments.

Says Canon India president and CEO Allan Grant: "It is now kyocei at Canon India. Kyocei [it's Japanese] means living and working together for the common good."

Underscoring that point is Alok Bharadwaj, director and general manager, who says the company will be launching a media blitzkrieg highlighting the importance of using original consumables like inks, cartridges and toners to provide regular income for the channel partners.

Last year Canon India added around 1.05 lakh customers who might require various refills. Presently consumables — inks, toners, media — is contributing around one-third of the total revenue.

The company has registered tremendous increase in the sales of inkjet printers, scanners, digital copiers and multifunctional devices (MFD). It has moved to the No 2 slot in the inkjet printer and scanner segments. Grant says the last quarter of 2002 saw Canon India's market share in MFDs and inkjet printers going up to 22 per cent and 18 per cent, respectively.

Translated into numbers, the company increased its turnover by Rs 51 crore to Rs 202 crore last year and is now termed as a serious player after HP, Epson (in inkjet printers) and Xerox (copier) markets. "Our goal is to become a Rs 500-crore turnover company and we are working towards that," says Grant.

Recently the company unveiled 21 new products (printers, scanners, MFDs, digital cameras, fax machines, multimedia projectors and consumables) for the Indian market, thereby taking its total product offerings to 100. "The strategy is concurrent introduction of all products in the Indian market when the same are launched elsewhere in the world," he adds.

What is interesting to note is that the company's confidence is derived from its growth success in the B and C towns and not in the metros. Says Bharadwaj: "The digital camera market is growing fast and along with it, the demand for printers is expected to grow."

Segmenting the digital imaging market into three — home, corporate and commercial — Bharadwaj says the last category holds great opportunity and is followed by the corporate sector. The company feels the home segment is in a nascent stage and would take time to grow.

"The commercial photo industry market is estimated to be around Rs 3,000 crore and there are 1 lakh studios in the country. Of that only 3,000 are into digital," says Bharadwaj. To target this market Canon India is in the process of appointing specialised dealers.

The second thrust area is penetrating the corporate segment (consisting of small office, home office, government and corporates) and where the brand awareness is high for the high-end digital networked products. To target this market the company will establish a separate channel designated as Canon corporate partners numbering around 50 to sell laser and inkjet printers and the all-in-one MFD that does copying, scanning and printing functions.

"A modest beginning has been made in the laser multifunctional devices and digital copier space," Bharadwaj says. According to him technological convergence will result a boom in digital copier market where Canon India is behind Xerox. In addition to having specialised distribution channels for different market segments, Canon India will also expand its retail outlets to 300.

On the sales support and service side, the company has set up a call centre. To iron out the logistical problems it is moving towards third-party logistics. "We will also enable channel partners to place order for consumables online," says Grant. Speaking about its brand perception, Bharadwaj says the products will not be cheap but will be now competitively priced.

Canon India, meanwhile, is also planning to increase its software exports. Last year the 50-member division contributed Rs 24 crore to the total turnover, exporting digital imaging and document management software. The codes are used in the products manufactured by Canon, Japan. Canon India has plans to double the head count by this yearend.

also see : www.canon.co.in