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Saturday, Nov 21, 2015

Consumer response to LED lighting in India

encouraging, but challenges remain:

Moser Baer

Moser Baer's Chief Marketing Officer Deepak Shetty

discusses the future strategy of the firm to tap into the LED

potential India promises.

By: Akash Sinha | New Delhi | August 2, 2015 12:19 AM 127 2 G+0 0 (0)

Our current priority is to make early inroads in the LED

sector, said Moser Baer Chief Marketing Officer Deepak

Shetty.

LED lighting industry has caught on fast in the Indian market as switch by consumers

from incandescent light bulbs to LED bulbs has been virtually seamless due to the

greater energy efficiency the former boasts of as as well its environment friendly

nature. Government is also promoting use of LED bulbs and making it available to

people on cheaper than market rates. In a situation that is tailor-made for LED

industry’s success, FE Online’s Akash Sinha, in an email interaction

with Moser Baer’s Chief Marketing Officer Deepak Shetty, discusses the future

strategy of the firm to tap into the potential India promises. Edited excerpts:

Q1. What challenges is the LED Lighting industry facing in India?

In India, the consumer mindset is the biggest challenge. LED adoption finds itself

caught in many a tangles like pricing, availability and belief in the product and a ‘do I

need it now?’ mindset. Since, LEDs are generally bought only after existing bulb has

lived out its life and not bought in advance for the day when the existing bulb is likely

to go ‘fused’, it is very critical for the user and buyer to understand the advantage of

purchasing LEDs over other options. Also, most of the users do not change the entire

lighting into LED, they replace one or two other bulbs in their homes. Due to this, the

benefits of using LED may not be visible in the electricity bills.

Q2. How is Moser Baer working towards providing affordable LED products?

For any product to become affordable or cheap, it has to go through the life cycle and

become mass used. Till the time a product is adopted only by a marginal section of

people, it is very unlikely to achieve cost optimization. Right now, we are working

towards establishing the credibility of the LED products and creating a market.

Q3. IS Moser Baer planning any joint venture or any merger or acquisition?

The Moser Baer brand has evolved over a period of time as a strong mass

manufacturer in the technology space. Our manufacturing strength with presence

across the country will be one of the critical differentiators for a LED venture. We are

currently focussed on utilizing this inherent brand strength to hit the Indian market.

Q4. Moser Baer LED is expanding across India. Is there a major hiring programme in

the works?

Moser Baer has always worked on the right person for the job and hence we are going

by the needs emanating from a particular region to hire a person. Our model depends

on ensuring the availability of the product in a close proximity of the consumer.

Hence, the hiring is very concentrated.

Q5. What makes Moser Baer LED stand out in the crowd?

Moser Baer products have always been acknowledged for their quality and our LED

products will not be any different. The quality and ROI to the user is what will make

our LED products attractive to the consumers.

Q6. Govt of India is keen to encourage LED lighting to save power. It has started a

scheme to provide LED bulbs at price of Rs 130. Is it also feasible for private sector to

provide LED bulbs of good quality at a low price like this?

Pricing mechanism is dependent on scale at manufacturing level and adoption rate by

the consumer. The government realising the need to conserve energy, is encouraging

rapid adoption of LED which in turn would bring prices down. In India, private sector

has been an able partner the government and even in the LED sector it would be no

different.

Q7. How you plan to tap Indian market?

We are working on creating awareness of the benefits of LEDs and ensuring

availability of the products in close proximity to the consumers. The good part is, the

response till date has been very encouraging from the consumers as the brand recall

of Moser Baer is very high.

Q8. What is Moser Baer future plans?

There are projections that the Global lighting market is set to reach $133 billion by

2020 and 62% will be LED. Frost & Sullivan expects Indian LED Lighting market to

be $1.3 billion i.e. ~ Rs 8,000 crore by 2018, hence our current priority is to make

early inroads in the sector.

First Published on August 02, 2015 12:19 am