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Ravish Khapra
Mumbai
January 17th, 2008
At a time when dealers are battling with large format retailers (LFR) for the
same customer pie, Altec Lansing has decided to ease matters for both these sets
of its channel. It has identified the products that each of these channels will
sell, to avoid infighting and cannibalization.
Altec's home entertainment category products would be available with the
consumer electronic retail outlets or LFRs while its PC speakers would be
available through the smaller IT dealers. Altec has entry-, mid- and high-end
products that it is trying to position in the market.
Stella Chan, VP-Sales and Marketing - Asia Pacific, Altec Lansing said,
"To avoid a clash of interests between IT retailers and LFRs, we will be
selling our higher end products through the LFRs and the lower end products
through the smaller IT dealers." Altec Lansing will be going through Rashi
Peripherals to reach out to both the LFRs and the smaller IT dealers.
The main focus for Altec Lansing in India is to move towards the higher end
products from the mid segment products in India. Altec Lansing has Rashi
Peripherals as its distributor for the western region.
Chan said, "Altec Lansing offers a unique buying proposition for the
customers. We realize that different customers buy from different channels.
Altec has been able to identify best interests of the different channels, like
the smaller IT dealers and LFRs." She further added, "With our parent
company, Plantronics, whose traditional business has been call centers, Altec
Lansing would look at bringing its products into Plantronics area of operations
in India. In North America we have been successful in doing the same."
Altec Lansing is a 70-year-old company, but is relatively new in India. It is
coming up with newer mid-to-upstream products. "We have five different
product categories that cover five different market segments. We have
traditional PC speakers, which are the multimedia speakers and we have iPod or
mp3 docking speakers, which are more portable. Then we have a newly created
category of mobile speakers that work with mobile phones. Also, we have the
headphones category and finally we have the home entertainment category,"
Chan informed. Page(s) 1
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