Brother eyes #2 slot in lasers

Launching a range of 14 laser printers (both mono and color), Brother International has set an ambitious goal for itself: to command the second largest marketshare in the Indian laser business. And the company plans to achieve this in three year's time. 

"We realize it's not an easy task but we believe there's a huge growth potential for laser printers in the country and we have introduced our products at a right time to tap this opportunity," remarks Ranjit Gurkar, GM-Business Machine Division, Brother International (Gulf). 

Last year, HP occupied over 60% marketshare in lasers with its share going as high as 90% in the color laser segment. The overall market size for 2003-04, as per Dataquest India estimates, was pegged at over 1.5 lakh units with revenues of Rs 346 crore. "And given the fact that China sold about 12 lakh units last year, we do feel there's a huge space for the Indian market to grow as well and we would command a sizeable share of this growth," emphasizes
Ranjit.

He goes on to inform how Brother's laser business over last eight years has climbed up to #2 spot in European market and #4 in the US. "What we are offering is a very quality product at affordable price-points and hence are confident of replicating the
same success here as well," adds Ranjit. 

He further dispels the argument that brandshare plays a major role in tilting customer's buying preferences. "A customer's decision to buy laser printers is based on very rational thinking and they tend to evaluate many parameters like cost of ownership, quality and reliability," remarks he.

The company would also be appointing 15 regional distributors and about 250 tier-2 partners to push its lasers. This is in addition to appointing Lipi Data Systems as its National Corporate Partner. It is also offering a three-year warranty on all its models. "Also unlike most other vendors, we are shipping our printers with regular toner as against starter tone offered by them," informs RS Anand, Country Manager, Brother International. 

The price points of these newly-launched printers start at Rs 10,000 and offer printing for A3, A4, A5 and tabloid sizes. 

GOLDIE

Bangalore