Canon India has chalked out aggressive retail initiatives for the coming quarters to strengthen its position further in retail domain. According to company, its printers and cameras will hog the limelight in its retail plans. The company is equally bullish on positioning itself as professional digital camera manufacturer for which it has roped in fashion photographer Atul Kasbekar as its brand ambassador. 

As per Canon's new roadmap its range of printers, which previously were largely driven in the market by traditional IT channels, will now get an equal display opportunity in retail shop fronts. 

Commenting about Canon's retail initiatives Dhiren Kumar Singh, Assistant Director-Marketing (Consumer Imaging) said, "As per the present market scenarios IT is not confined to offices only, rather it has become ubiquitous. Above that, the buying behavior of Indian consumers has undergone a 360-degree transformation, which calls for registering widespread retail presence of a company if it desires to target mass market. Considering all these market forces we have decided to lend retail touch to most of our products." 

To pursue its retail strategy Canon has already initiated 73 IT imaging zones, the multi-brand retail outlets for Canon printers. And going by company's announcement this number would be almost doubled up by June end. Singh opined, "We expect Canon products will contribute to almost 60 percent towards the retail shops revenue." Singh informed that Canon anticipates instituting 300 imaging zones across the country by next year, wherein Canon would be funding for the makeover of entire outlet excluding the space. 

Apart from partner owned retail shops Canon is also targeting big retail malls in top metro towns to make its presence further felt in retail market. However, Singh did not disclose any concrete figure about the kind of revenue the company would be fuelling in to leverage on the benefits of retail market. "Investment part is imperative, but more than financials our basic objective of targeting renowned malls across the country is to make brand Canon more visible. In all these 10-12 malls which we are finalizing on, we will settle down for premium locations only for exhibiting our products," informed Singh.

As far as its camera business is concerned Canon is looking forward at laying greater emphasis on the concept of digiclick zones (makeover of traditional photo outlets). Currently, Canon is maintaining 34 digiclick zones and going further their number would be scaled up to 140 by next calendar year. Talking about the opportunities in professional camera's segment Singh said, "World over Canon is known for its lenses. And to propagate the same hypothesis in India we have started focusing extensively on professional photography segment as well. We have tailored various workshops for professionals to showcase in front of them the power of Canon lenses, and to accomplish the task we have roped in Atul Kasbekar to promote our professional camera range amongst photography specialists."

Going further Canon also looks forward to collaborating with photographer's guild that the company says will empower the brand Canon make more impact on photography professional. Today Canon is launching in association with world wildlife forum, the first ever WWF photo contest to promote the urgent need of conserving planet's depleting freshwater resources.

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