No slowing down: NRIs from Kerala, Punjabbelt push up retail sales

  KOLKATA: The rising dollar may have become a splitting headache for consumer electronic companies and lifestyle retailers who are facing the brunt of cut down on aspirational consumer spend amid rising prices, but there are two markets which have completely bucked the slowdown: Kerala and the Punjab-Chandigarh belt.

 

  Companies like Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, LG, Videoconand Toshiba along with retail chains like The Mobile Store, Univer-Cell and Arvind Brands, said sales growth in Kerala and the Punjab-Chandigarh belt is much more than their national average, attributing the brisk demand to the high forex remittances flowing to the households from NRI family members and relatives with the rupee sharply depreciating against the dollar, pound and dirham. In fact, the companies said sales took a major spike in July-August when the rupee crashed to its lowest ever against the dollar.

  What's more: most consumer electronic brands outstripped their Onam sales target in Kerala this year, with Malayalis settled in the Middle East who return home are buying more due to forex benefit and the recent imposition of 36 per cent duty on personal baggage of LED and plasma television sets. "Onam has come as a big surprise, with consumers upgrading their purchases, such as large screen televisions costing even a lakh or premium smartphones," says Sony India sales head Sunil Nayyar. He said Sony will clock around 200-crore sales from Onam, while the company had set a target of around 170 crore, with sales growing at twice the pace than the national average.

  Smartphone market leader and top consumer electronics brand Samsung India confirmed much higher sales in Kerala and Punjab-Chandigarh than the national average. Samsung has already achieved its target of Rs 250-crore sales in Kerala, which will be a growth of 25 per cent as compared to its 20 per cent target. "In Punjab, the demand growth is more driven by desire to upgrade and, therefore, we are seeing a strong momentum in terms of premium products," said Samsung India senior VP (consumer electronics) Atul Jain.

 

  LG India's sales head Sanjeev Aggarwal said LG too is growing faster in high-end products such as 32-inches and above LED TV, 3D TV, frost-free refrigerators, convection microwave and front-loading washing machine in Kerala and Punjab. In Kerala, LG has grown by more than 18 per cent during Onam. Panasonic India said its sales growth in Punjab accelerated to 20 per cent in the past 2-3 months over last year, when the rupee depreciated the most.

  Videocon chief operating officer CM Singh said most of the demand in Punjab is coming from the Ludhiana-Patiala-Bhatinda-Amristar belt which has the highest number of households whose members are settled abroad, leading to a 30 per cent growth in sales in the last two months as compared to 7-8 per cent growth nationally.

 

  The country's two largest mobile phone retail chains, The Mobile Store and Univer-Cell Telecom, which together operate more than 1,200 stores, said the demand is high for mid-to-premium smartphone models such as Apple's iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Grand, Sony's Z and Nokia Lumia series.

AKANKSHA SHANU

PGDM 1st sem.