LG Electronics wants to cement its position as India ‘s top television brand even as it works relentlessly to achieve a growth target of 25-30 percent within the burgeoning category in 2024, a senior company executive told FE on Wednesday. The South Korean tech major plans to do it on the back of an expansive catalogue of high-performance OLED and QNED TVs across a plethora of screen sizes all powered by the next generation of artificial intelligence.
“We are looking at 25-30 percent growth this year in television business,” Abhiral Bhansali, business head, TV & Audio Products at LG Electronics said, reiterating that “We want to reinforce our position as a leadership [brand] especially with the latest technology QNED and OLED televisions.”
LG has launched two different segments of QNED TVs in India— including one with mini-LED technology. It has incorporated an “upgradable web software” across the line-up and bundled high-end features like Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos previously reserved for its more premium OLED TVs.
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“With these technologies coming into affordable QNED TVs, I think there’s a big uptake and big growth opportunity for us in those price segments [of roughly about Rs 65,000],” Bhansali said, adding that, “till last year, features like Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos were only available in OLED TVs with starting price of about Rs 1.2 lakh.”
Similarly on OLED TVs, LG has carefully orchestrated affordability construct on EMIs which are available for as low as Rs 2,990/month over a 36-month tenure in addition to cash backs and extended warranty. Bhansali said a typical LG customer can be rest assured his TV is totally secured and covered for about five years.
Offering greater choice in screen sizes is deliberate, Bhansali added. “Today’s customer has an option of buying a television from 32-inch to about 97-inch so whatever their [preferred] space is, be it a small bedroom, or a bigger living room, we have those screen sizes available for consumers.“
Bigger screens in general have started to receive a lot of traction in the Indian market post COVID. The reason, he explained, is that people now increasingly want to setup a theatre-like experience at home. Similarly, another recent trend is AI though to be completely honest, LG has used some type of AI in most of its smart TVs since 2017. Anyhow, the 2024 batch features the next-generation of AI with improvements across picture and sound for an overall better “personalised” viewing experience.
Through AI Picture Pro, the new LG TVs can understand the content, genre, and scene and accordingly upscale it. LG calls it “super upscaling”, Bhansali said. The TVs can use AI to upgrade the audio track to a 11.1.2 channel surround sound as well. Lastly, these TVs can also create custom picture profile through a feature called AI Picture Wizard.
All the new TVs—including OLED—will be made in India at LG’s Pune Factory, which is “one of the company’s best factories globally”, Bhansali confirmed. LG also has an R&D base in Pune and “understands the customer” from ground-up, which invariably reflects in its features and innovations.
LG has employed about 9,000 technicians to take care of its customers “day in and day out”, Bhansali said, while in terms of reach, it has 51 branches.
“We completed 27 years in India this year, so our network is really wide. We are present everywhere. We are servicing customers in the remotest location possible.”
On competition from “unconventional” Chinese brands, Bhansali said, “The top three brands contribute to 75 percent [of the market]. So still the chunk of business is available with the top three brands which are LG, Samsung, and Sony. Within 25 percent balance market, there are a lot of brands which are available, and I think there is not much of a shift happening. So the tier-two and tier-three brands are [still] at 25 percent.”
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