An interesting news has reached our ears from the industry circles. As part of the rationalisation going on in the Home appliances segment, Videocon may be about to acquire Onida. This is an unconfirmed news and we want to analyze for a moment why there could be a possibility.

Ever since the market opened up to foreign players, Indian companies had found the going increasingly tough. They were not able to compete with the costs and offerings from multinational giants like Philips, Samsung, LG etc.

In the mid 80’s there were quite a few TV manufacturer in India. ECL, Dyanora, Solidaire, Weston, Crown and Optonica were some of the familiar brands which shut their operations in mid 90’s, because they were no longer competitive nor had the marketing edge to sell their products in the Indian market.

In this situation, some of the players made a bold move to have technological tie ups with foreign companies. Some of the prominent partnerships established were:

• BPL - Sanyo ( in our earlier article [see below] we mentioned that this is now more than just a technological tie-up. Sanyo and BPL are now equal equity partners in the JV)
• Onida - JVC
• Videocon - National Panasonic

These three companies were pretty dominant in Indian market for quite some time. Philips was a late entrant in this scene and managed to capture a significant portion of the market.

But what really changed the situation was the entry of Samsung and LG. These Korean companies were very aggressive with their marketing. Their local presence and strong brand appeal were able to attract a lot of customers and we believe LG is now the leader in the Indian Television market.

Videocon is now focused on communicating their “Indian Multinational” image with recent acquisitions like Thomson, Kenstar, Kanchan foods etc. They are not only manufacturing and selling televisions under their own brand name, but are also acting as Equipment Manufacturers for companies like Sansui and Toshiba.

Onida with their memorable ad campaigns were a force to reckon in the past. Now those golden days are long gone, when consumers used to associate with their “different” ad campaigns.

We of course are not in a position to confirm anything on this matter, but the decision could be welcome to both groups in order to pool their strengths so that they can take on the competition from Korean Giants - Samsung and LG.

Pretty much the same thing had happened in the mobile phones sector were late entrants like Nokia created a huge market share for themselves and left no choice for the other players but to re-strategize their game.

In the mobile space, Sony tied up with Ericsson, Benq tied up with Siemens and the former is now a formidable competition for Nokia along with the revamped Motorola.

Also read our coverage on televisions :

Television - A preview on offerings

Television Brands in India - Part 1

Television Brands in India - Part 2

We welcome your comments and views on this topic.

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• Television Brands in India - Part 1
• Videocon’s S 091 DX refrigerator - Price and Review
• Retail Plus AV Electronic Show-2008-Coverage-Part III

Today’s article is on “mattresses”.

Image Courtesy : answers.com

It is said that an average humans spends close to 33 % of their lives at sleep. With other factors such as a lazy siesta , or ailment , this only goes up.

So why is choosing the right mattress so important?

- The bed is the most important piece of furniture at home where people spend the majority of their time on.

- A bed is incomplete without a mattress. So right decision has to be made if you are purchasing one.

- More investment in the mattress is a better option than on the bed itself.

Some facts about mattresses:

• Different people have different requirements , so a single mattress cannot do justice to all customers.
• People who have some back-problems should consult with specialist before going for a mattress.
• Some criteria which a mattress should fulfill are cost, comfort, warranty, size.
• A bad mattress does a lot of harm to one’s back and usually people tend to have a bad start to the day if previous night’s sleep was not adequate.

The various types of mattresses are:

> Latex

> Coir

> Spring

> Foam

There are some special types like

> Water mattress

> Air mattress

We do not know how good these are for your back.

The following are the various brands of mattresses available in the India

(This is imported mattress from USA.)

Prices in India start from 3000 odd rupees to even 15000 rupees. There is a wide variety out there, so choose wisely.

We will cover more on these lines. This is just an introduction. Keep reading and sleep well informed !

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• Posts from this week

We first covered televisions on 19 August ‘07. That was more of a curtain raiser. A few days ago we discussed our ambition to cover brand specific information. In today’s post we are just going to see the tip of the iceberg - brand names of television sets sold in India.

Image Courtesy : www.createyourhometheater.com

The market is overflowing with TV sets. There are all sorts of manufacturers out there. Let us classify them based on their country of origin.

Indian Television Brands

  

Chinese Television Brands

  

Korean Television Brands

  

Japanese Television Brands

  

Other Country brands

  - Taiwan

 - Holland

 - USA

Click here to read more

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We have been on-line for just about two months now. One of the features which we wanted to offer in Aavaas was to have a comprehensive brand knowledge-base on key appliances in India.

In the coming days, we will start rolling out posts which would have brand details for various appliances. These would just serve to increase consumer awareness. Perhaps if you own one of the brands listed, you may write a review on them on Aavaas’ comment section.

Brand is defined as

” A trademark or distinctive name identifying a product or a manufacturer. “

What are the ingredients in the making of a brand ?

- Product (that offers innovation at attractive prices)

- Company (that is driven by values and has a good marketing strategy)

- Consumer (who benefits from innovation and values)

In India, brand/company names are passed on from one generation to another. Further Internet has increased people’s awareness levels. No longer are people worried about experimenting new brands which offer them good value for money.

keep reading !

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