“The Indian market is very focused on sound. That is why in all our SKUs, the sound is more than 20 watts. If we talk about western countries, it is about 12 watts.”
How has your journey been so far in India? What was the reason behind choosing Kodak as a brand licensee for a partnership?
The journey so far has been great. There are very few companies in the world that still exist even after 130 years, especially in electronics. We want to thank all our customers who have welcomed us back in India and who have bought our televisions.
Bringing Kodak back to India wasn't easy as Kodak is a digital picture brand and it was very challenging to make people realize that our main motive was for the customer to be able to relate Kodak digital picture with a digital screen. Also, there is always a challenge when you enter a new market. We all know India is a very price competitive market and having come back we have gained market share. The reason for choosing Kodak was that it is one of the oldest brands in the world. Kodak has a history of 125 years and the kind of love, affection and nostalgia that the brand has garnered globally makes it one of the most recalled brands in the world after McDonalds, Apple and Pepsi. Also, the kind of brand equity it holds in the market, it is good for India.
Tell us about the machines that have been used and the manufacturing process that goes into creating a Smart TV at SPPL's manufacturing unit?
We have in house molding machines from 90 tonnes to 1500 tonnes where we do all the plastic injection molding for all the TV LED cabinets from 20 inches to 50 inches. We have our own in-house paint shop as well. Apart from the ‘big four', we are the first manufacturer in India to do SMT of Smart TV PCB. We also have a clean room for assembling the panel and the display glass for the backlight as well as a fully automatic line for assembling LED televisions.
What are the latest trends in the Smart TV market? What is latest trend that Kodak would like to capitalize on?
As you know, the market share of smart TVs, especially online, has increased to about 75 percent. Quarter by quarter, there is a growth of about 20 percent for smart TVs. All thanks to the internet availability that has improved immensely in our country, due to which the demand for smart TVs has also increased. Today, people want to watch more content on their television. That is why, they are opting for smart TVs. Witnessing this trend, we are launching our new wall for smart TVs which will have 10 million hours of content. It will be fully focused on content, plus you can download your favourite smart TV apps. So, our future is focused on our smart TV and 4K TVs. We will be observing and mapping the consumer behaviour in India and will endeavour to provide them more Indian content in different languages.
What are your plans for offline market, since Kodak HD LED TV has been ecommerce focused?
After a successful launch with the big three online portals and with Flipkart being one of our strategic partners for Kodak, we have launched in nine states and we are doing business with best LFR (large format retails) in the country.
What are the after sales services that you provide to your customers?
We have more than 350 company service centers plus we have our service franchise, which in total makes it more than 500 service centers across India. Our installation SLA is about 24 hours to 48 hours and our service call is under 48 hours. We cover 14,000 pin codes across India.
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