Homegrown luxury TV maker Vu Technologies is nursing ambitions of taking its brand to Europe.
The 11-year-old company, which pits itself against MNCs like Samsung and LG in the domestic market, is studying the viability of the move.
“Being a new and young brand like Vu might be more appealing for customers in Europe who are already exposed to 30-year-old brands like Samsung and Sony,” said Devita R Saraf, CEO and Design Head, Vu Technologies. “Even in those markets we will face them as competitors. We are exploring the potential of Vu as a youth brand in those markets and doing research on how to execute it with local partners. There will be local apps and channels developed to suit the European markets.”
This is not the first time that Vu is looking overseas.
“We did think of taking Vu to North America in the past but logistics was an issue. Since India is known for its technology based services and technology is at the core of Vu, it might be more suited to countries in Western Europe,” said Saraf.
Vu is promoted by the Mumbai-based Saraf family, which also owns Zenith Computers.
While it has stayed away from raising private equity funding, Vu has been making efforts to improve its valuation over the years. A couple of years ago, it did consider offloading a 25 per cent stake to new investors.
“When venture capitalists come in they expect shorter and quicker returns,” said Saraf. “While we are open to fund raising, we are increasing our valuation, which we believe is at ₹900 crore today.”
With plans of doubling its sales turnover from the current ₹500 crore, Vu is also getting ambitious in the domestic market, where it claims to have a 25 per cent share in the premium LED TV segment. “We want to take a lead in the smart TV segment with our new technologies and have been growing 60 per cent y-o-y in both online and offline channels. Today the youth trusts our brand and we want to cater to them with new features like video on demand and gaming and have a pull strategy,” added Saraf.
Much like the MNCs , Vu depends on China and Korea to source its panels and assembles its televisions in India. “We are ‘Make in India’ only for software development and have an R&D lab. The Indian ecosystem will take time to develop for complete manufacturing and even the MNCs use it as an assembly base to save on tax primarily,” she said.
With almost 60 per cent of its sales coming from online channels like Flipkart, Vu has also got its offline strategy in place. It reaches out to 1,600 multibrand outlets, along with big retailers like Reliance Digital and its 25 company owned flagship Vu stores.