Toshiba to set up production unit

Toshiba Corporation on Thursday said it planned to set up a manufacturing facility in India by this year-end to cut costs in the highly competitive Indian market, while its Gurgaon-based research and development (R&D) centre would become operational soon that would develop products specifically for the domestic market.

The consumer electronic major of Japan also introduced new innovative products, including the world's first glasses-free 3D laptop and 3D TV besides 19-inch LED TV.

“We will start local manufacturing of our products starting with television by the end of this year. Our aim is to make our products more affordable to help us tap the growing Indian market. We will gradually extend local manufacturing to home appliances depending on the demand of the products…we will also focus on localising its products,” Toshiba Corporation Vice-President (digital products and services) Masayuki Ito told journalists here.

Toshiba now imports all its products, mainly from Indonesia and Japan.

“India is an important market for us and we want to offer our customers here leading-edge products offering more functions. We are focused on extending our reach and finding growth with products specially designed for India. We hope to increase the number of television sold in India by 10-fold to 3-lakh units by the end of this year. We are targeting a 10 per cent LCD TV share in current fiscal and 15 per cent share in 2012-13,” he added. Referring to the new products, Toshiba India Director (digital products, home appliances and services division) Wu Tengguo said: “We are determined to provide a broad array of high-value products that reflect the changing lifestyles in India, and to address market requirements. We are strengthening our product line up by introducing range of products across its all the categories including LCD, laptop and washing machines.”

Toshiba India is also integrating the business operations of consumer products, including television and home appliances, with its personal computer divisions in the domestic market. “Unifying both the businesses will save our logistics cost and help in building the brand image in the country. It will also leverage the distribution channels of both the businesses and enhance its position,” Mr. Tengguo added.''   


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