Japanese consumer appliance and electronics company Akai is making another comeback in the Indian market. Its foray in the 1990s did not work very well in the Indian market largely owing to its offerings based on lack of cost competitiveness and low brand recall. It was browbeaten then by other entrants like LG and Sony. But now, the company is all set to return. Global Brands Enterprise Solutions Pvt Ltd has signed up with Akai to sell its products in India. This resulted in the recent launch of a range of ultra-slim LED, LCD High Definition and CRT televisions. Presumably, to become one of the leading players in the Indian market in the next few years, the company plans to invest around Rs.25 crores towards advertising and marketing. At the same time, the company is not looking to hire any brand ambassador. The positioning of Akai will be done as a mass premium brand and it will be 5-8% cheaper than leading brands like Sony, Samsung and LG. There are other strategies too. This time, Akai will not be focusing only on Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities (like the previous time), but will also target larger cities. Will all this be enough to gain a significant market share? The fact cannot be neglected that Akai had turned the market upside-down in the nineties by playing the pricing game. It was the first one to offer the combo offer (a 14 inch colour TV with every 24 inch TV), which rewrote marketing rules then. But the market space has changed. So have the rules.
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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
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