Canon plans for aggressive marketing to boost sales
Its South and Southeast Asia boss tells during his first trip to Dhaka
Kensaku KonishiCanon has planned to go for aggressive marketing strategy in Bangladesh to boost its market share. The company will also set up exclusive brand shops here as part of its new strategy. Initially the brand shops will be set up in Dhaka and gradually in other cities across the country.
The strategy also includes massive promotional activities.
Kensaku Konishi, president and CEO, South and Southeast Asia, Canon shared the new strategy during his first-ever trip to Dhaka earlier this month.
During a press meet Konishi said Canon has over 40% market share in Bangladesh and is planning to increase it.
"Canon is expecting over 30% revenue growth from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Myanmar by the end of this year," said Konishi.
The Canon CEO also said from January 2012, 20% of total revenue of Canon came from Asia.
To increase Bangladesh's contribution to its revenue, Canon needs to increase its market here and hence the new marketing strategy.
Regarding Canon's relatively higher price than other companies, Konishi said its price is a bit high because Canon does not compromise with quality.
About its after-sale service, Konishi said that it is the best and Canon believes in quality service.
Abdullah H. Kafi, managing director, J.A.N Associates LTD, the business partner of Canon in Bangladesh, who was also present at the press meet, said unlike other companies Canon has highly skilled service providers here.
"We believe in customer service, not just in selling box", said Kafi.
Konishi said although Canon launches 100 new products every year globally, it cannot launch every new product here.
For example he said, Canon cannot introduce its high-end digital cameras on regular basis because of high duty. Even if it does introduce, people cannot buy the camera because of high price.
Because of this, the market for digital camera is not developing and not contributing to economy.
Konishi said the duty on cameras should be reduced in order to make it affordable for people.
For example, Konishi said Bangladesh now enjoys a huge mobile phone market only because the government reduced duty on it.
Konishi said since the digital camera market is not developing, the government is losing potential revenue from it. He said the government can enjoy huge amount of revenue if it reduces the duty to a reasonable range.
Abdullah H. Kafi said if the government reduces duty on digital cameras, it will not only play its part in country's economy but also help make employments and reduce the ever growing unemployment problem of the country.
"Take ICT market for instance," he said, "when duty on computers was high the market was small but once the duty was cut short the market became big, lot of people started using it, became skilled and got jobs," he said. "Same thing can happen with digital cameras," he added.
Kafi also said Bangladesh now has the highest growth in mobile phone use in the world only because of the low duty.
He said that in many countries digital cameras have been put in the category of IT products but unfortunately in Bangladesh the picture is different.
He said this potential market needs attention in this regard.
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