NEW DELHI: Japanese electronics firm Toshiba has triggered a price war in the flat panel televisions segment by introducing a 32-inchLCD television at 20,990 and entering the 19-inch LCD TV segment at an entry price of 10,000.
The prices are up to 30% less than similar products of rivals like LG, Samsung,Sony and Onida.
"We want to get closer to consumers at the earliest as competition is getting intense,"Toshiba India Director (Digital Products) Wu Tengguo said.
The company wants to lure Indian consumers to replace their traditional cathode ray tube (CRT) television sets with flat-panel LCD televisions, he said. CRT TVs still occupy nearly 60% of the domestic television market.
Toshiba, which sold 30,000 LCD TVs in India last financial year, has set an ambitious target of selling 3 lakh LCD sets and acquire close to 10% market share this year.
Sony,LG andSamsung currently dominate Indian flat-panel TV market.
Samsung India Deputy MD R Zutshi said any price war will not last long. "There is certainly a scope for companies to experiment with new sizes as LCD TV penetration is still very low. However, the price war is not going to continue for long as prices have already touched the bottom," Zutshi said.
Korean firms LG and Samsung-which together account for almost half of the market share across key product categories such as TV, refrigerators, washing machines and ACs-sell entry-level 32-inch LCD TV at 29,990, while homegrown brandOnida sells it for 23,490.
Even more significant could be Toshiba's entry into the 19-inch LCD TV segment at 10,000. Half of the three million flat-panel televisions sold in the country in 2010 were 19-26 inches in size.
Toshiba will soon start making LCD TVs in India , Tengguo said.
Toshiba's aggressive move is another example for Japanese companies' recent efforts to increase market share in India, which they lost to Korean rivals in late 1990s and early 2000s, mainly due to their premium pricing.
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