Kodak TV eyes 125% growth in revenue in 2019

Kodak Television (TV) is eyeing a 125 percent growth in its revenue in 2019. In an interaction with Moneycontrol, Avneet Singh Marwah, CEO, Super Plastronics (the exclusive brand licensee for Kodak TVs in India) said that there are also looking at expanding their manufacturing capacity in India.

Super Plastronics has entered into a brand licensing agreement with Eastman Kodak Company, USA. As per this agreement, they are the exclusive Kodak brand licensee. In 2018, the revenue was Rs 350 crore.

“Kodak was launched in August 2016 and since then there has been no looking back for the brand. It is a top selling online brand in the country. Further, we are also going offline with our store presence. Currently we sell across 16,000 pin-codes in India,” he added.

The company has set up three manufacturing facilities in Himachal Pradesh (Una), Jammu and Noida. Marwah said that they are looking to expand the facility in Noida.

“We have invested about Rs 150 crore for the new line in Noida. We will be launching a new fully automatic production line at the end of this month adjacent to where the present facility stands,” he added.

Kodak TV launched two models under the XPRO series. Marwah said that the products have performed well on Flipkart.

While the 32 inch and 40 inch television category is among the top sellers online, Marwah said that the goods and services tax (GST) of 28 percent continues to be a dampener for the industry.

“The 28 percent GST for television is the highest rate charged anywhere in the world. We are hoping that this is decreased to 18 percent, which will boost volumes and enable higher tax collection,” he added.

In this year, Kodak will be launching seven to eight new models with an emphasis on technology-led products.

The World Cup Cricket 2019 is set to begin from May 30. Marwah said that this will give a boost to television sales in India.

“A lot of individuals are preferring OTT applications to watch sports. There will be a further spike in television sales during the World Cup season this year,” he added.

Currently, he said that 78 percent TVs sold online are smart televisions while the share of smart TVs in the offline channel is 67 percent. Overall, Marwah said that there is a 100 percent growth in the market share of smart televisions in India which has now grown to 88 percent.