It’s festive time for electronic firms

New Delhi, Sept. 18: As the festival season starts on Saturday with the Navaratri this year, the consumer electronic companies are expecting to make a kill. Last year, post-Lehman Brothers crisis the mood was sombre in the festival season.

“We are expecting sales of Rs 1,700 crore in this festival season, a growth of 40 per cent over last year,” said Samsung India Electronics, deputy managing director, Mr R. Zutshi.

Samsung India is offering discounts and free gifts with its products to boost sales. “We will be launching specific advertisement campaigns till Diwali. We have also made a new TV commercial for our digital cameras,” said Mr Zutshi.

“In 2008, the prices were high due to increase in the input costs and we were not able to give too many discount offers. But this year, things will be different,” said another official from Samsung.

The company feels that there will be no impact on the sales due to the poor monsoon or economic slowdown on the sales.

“It was only in the first quarter, when there was a slight impact but otherwise this segment has never seen any slowdown,” said Mr Zutshi. LG India, director of sales and marketing, Mr V. Ramachandran, said this festival season sales are expected to be quiet good as compared to the last year. “The government has released 60 per cent arrears of the sixth pay commission this year, which is a very high sum. We expect this step to boost the sales of companies like LG during this period,” said Mr Ramachandran.

He said that the company is expecting a growth of 30-40 per cent in the festival season. “We will not offer any special discount as we have launched many India-specific products, which should help in sales,” he said