Rank 14: Samsung: The ‘Essentials’ Champion

This was a near-clean-sweep year for Samsung Inc. Apart from reigning

over its traditional turf of computer monitors, the Korean giant’s

wholly-owned Indian subsidiary dominated the entire IT peripherals (‘IT

essentials’) market in fiscal 2001-02.

Performance Highlights Expanded 17’’ monitor market segment; took up nearly half the monitor market Despite HP’s dominance in laser printers, established a strong presence in this space Strengths Expertise in core technologies and presence across the entire IT peripherals space Strong channel network High brand equity in assembler segment Weaknesses Lack of experience in enterprise market can prove a major handicap to further growth Competition’s channel thrust hurting monitor sales Samsung Electronics India Information and Telecommunication Ltd. l Startup: 2000 l Products & services: PC monitors, Hard disk drives, laser printers, CD-ROMs, DVD ROMs, CDRWs and cellular handset s l Dealer Outlets: 6,500 l Address: 47, Ring Road, Lajpat Nagar III, New Delhi 110024 l Tel: 6322517-19 l Fax: 6322607 l Website: samsungindia.com

While the domestic peripherals market witnessed 6% growth in value terms–from

Rs 2,636 crore in 2000-01 to Rs 2,794 crore–the company scripted 26% growth to

close its books with revenues of Rs 1,106 crore. Among the star performers, HDDs

clocked 44% growth in value terms while cellphones grew 300% to touch Rs 94

crore.

The company consolidated its position in the PC monitors segment claiming

over 50% marketshare as it shipped a total of 847,003 units–a growth of 18% in

volume terms, coming in a year that the PC market showed flat numbers. In value

terms, however, the growth was slower–6%. The monitors segment continued to be

the major grosser–Rs 588 crore.

Laser printers and optical media solutions were the other big areas for

Samsung, as the company continued to increase its share of the HDD (hard disk

drive) market. Samsung sold 46% more HDDs this year–607,263 units (417,000

units in fiscal 2000-01)–but its growth in the laser printer segment was an

awesome 93%. Though this number is well short of the 17,000-plus units target,

it was much higher than market leader HP’s 25% and the industry average of

22%. Interestingly, with HP exiting the CDR segment in January this year,

Samsung is moving ahead full steam with a target of cornering 80% of this Rs

12-crore-per-month market. Year 2001-02 was tough for channel players and it was

incentives that most vendors hinged their bets on–and so did Samsung. It added

SPEAR (Samsung Preferred E-enabled Authorized Reseller) to its repertoire and

became the only vendor to promote the ‘just-in-time’ buying concept by

removing the minimum-buying clause–however, a ceiling on maximum purchases was

imposed. Samsung India also initiated the SCAP program (Small City Adoption

Plan) and moved into the‘D’ class towns. The target for 2002-03–Rs 1,500

crore.