Canon to up prices 5%; eyes 45% rise in sales in 2012

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Canon India has indicated that it will be hiking prices of its non-camera products by up to 5 per cent from June to offset the impact of rupee fall. This will be its second price hike within six months.

"We are looking at increasing our prices by 5 per cent in all products except the cameras from June 1. Since this is the peak season for cameras we don't want to create any impact on sales now," Canon India senior vice-president Alok Bharadwaj told PTI over phone from Delhi.

He also said that the company is expecting a 45 per cent rise in sales this year at Rs 2,200 crore, from the Rs 1,525 crore last year.

Admitting that price spike will impact sales at a time when already demand is slackening in the consumer durables space, he said, "We have decided to increase prices even if it means it slows a little bit of our topline, because the fall of the rupee is so steep.''

"The rupee fall has made the environment very uncertain and a big challenge," he said.

"Our total revenue should be Rs 2,200 crore this year, last year we clocked about Rs 1,525 crore. My optimism comes from a substantial increase in market share for compact cameras and high growth in digital SLR," he said.

The price increase will be in the documentation products including laser printers, copier machines, inkjet printers and other IT peripherals segments which contribute half of the its turnover.

Last year, the imaging company's sales got hit in the wake of the tsunami in Japan and floods in Thailand.

With the growing affluence, the company is planning to sell over 1 lakh units of digital single lens reflex (SLR) cameras, which bring higher revenues.

"This year our plan is to sell about 1.2 lakh of DSLRs. Last year we had sold about 60,000 units. The DSLR market is estimated to be 2.5 lakh units, so our aim is to be close to 50 percent market share," Bharadwaj said.

The Japanese firm aims to have a bigger slice of the market in the compact camera segment too. "This year, we expect the compact camera market to touch 40 lakh units and of this, we are targeting a market share of 25 per cent," Bharadwaj said, adding that last year its market share was 18 percent.

"We have 60 Canon Image Squares across 40 cities and we will take it to about 100 stores by this year end. And we are looking at having about 300 stores by 2014," he said adding the investment for each store is about Rs 25 lakh.