Kathmandu, March 2:

It had never been so good for the high-end consumer electronics business and information technology market as the last three years, if you look at the picture Ravinder Zutshi, deputy-managing director, Samsung India paints, who is also in-charge of Nepal operations. The figures he reels off, for Samsung India alone, gives substance to his story.

Sale of Flat TV has grown by 75 per cent, air-conditioners by 20 per cent over the last three years, high-end refrigerators by 27 per cent and LCDs by a staggering 800 per cent compared to the same quarter last year. In the IT segment too, sale of TFT monitors have shot up by 100 per cent.

Zutshi attributes this phenomenal market growth to exciting advances in technology, rising brand consciousness and spiraling consumerism. The existence of 300 million households as target audience for these products in India alone, tells Zutshi, is good enough to make the future extremely exciting.

This growth pattern is being reflected in most of the SAARC nations too to a varying degree.

Zutshi, who operates from the Delhi office that looks after operations in South-West Asia including Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives, is here in Kathmandu to attend a technology presentation from Samsung, organised by Neoteric Nepal and Ishan Infosis for Samsung dealers.

Talking to The Himalayan Times, Zutshi exudes confidence for the consumer electronics segment and IT sector in Nepal. He, however, points to the need to improve the quality of showrooms in Nepal, where consumers can feel at home and be duly impressed by the quality products on offer. He says, “We believe in presenting the entire range with the latest products. We don’t believe in presupposing customers’ choice. That is one way of underestimating their value. Samsung likes to unleash the whole gamut and let the consumer make up his mind.”

This is one reason, Samsung according to him, is number one in many high-end products like Plasma TV, LCD, home theatre, HDTV and refrigerators above the range of 400 litres in India.

Pointing out to the 12 Samsung service locations in Nepal and seven exclusive showrooms that already exist here, Zutshi says that product range, market reach and reasonable pricing are pillars on which the company wants to consolidate its market domination in Nepal, further.

Distributed by Neoteric Nepal, Samsung products like monitors, HDD and peripherals sell twice more than its competitors in Nepal.

All this strength, Zutshi points out, Samsung derives from its unwavering focus on R&D on which the company spent $5.2 billion globally last year. Some of the latest technology contributions from the company have been development of digital natural image and nano technologies, which are proprietary of Samsung, informs Zutshi. Expressing confidence about the prospect of Nepali consumer electronics and IT markets, he says that with a little bit more effort they are ready explode like the Indian market, albeit on a different scale.

Samsung holds technology show

Kathmandu: Neoteric Nepal and Ishan Infosis organised a ‘Samsung Technology Show’ in the capital on Saturday. Various facets of information technology and consumer electronics manufactured by Samsung were displayed at the event which was attended by more than 250 dealers and distributors. Sale of Samsung IT product categories like LCDs, TFT monitors, RAM, CDT monitors and Hard Disk Drive have shown considerable growth in recent times in the global market.

Samsung has also started making its presence felt in the solutions segment with its range of NotePC’s, printers and multifunction printers. The premium Samsung Note PC’s are mostly slim and light and are available in the domestic market too. It was also informed that Samsung is to launch a new range of colour monitors in Nepal in the near future.

Speaking at the programme, Sanjay Golchha of Neoteric Nepal said that the excellent consumer support and quality of service thro-ugh the wide network of dea-lers have put Samsung brand at the top. P C Dugar of Ishan Infosys acknowledged channel partners for their continuous support. —hns