Just days before the budget announcement, Samsung India announced an increase of two to three percent in the prices of its Eye Fresh Technology (EFT) monitors across India. Stating the reason for the hike, Harry Ahn, VP-IT, Samsung India informed DQ Channels, “The increase in raw material costs, specifically picture tube costs compelled us to hike the prices of our CRT monitors.”

Ahn said, “The channel has accepted this well and they will sell at the new prices from the date the price change has been announced.” The price hike went into effect from early Feb. He further informed that the new pricing would also be valid on the old stock that partners have.

When Bharat Bhushan, CEO, RR Systems was contacted, he showed no excitement about the hike. According to him, “Partners compete with each other at low margins in CRT monitors. As a result such price hikes do not make any difference.”

As per the data provided by the vendor, Samsung 15-inch EFT monitor is currently selling at an estimated street price of  Rs 3,750 against its MoP of
Rs 3,650 in Jan 07, while the 798MB Magic Bright (17-inch) monitor costs around Rs 6,150, up from its previous month's pricing of Rs 6,050. But few partners operating from Nehru Place disagree as they sometimes sell even lower then the MoP. Further, Samsung has plans to launch five to six new LCD monitors in the screen sizes between 17 to 22-inch in the Indian market by the end of March. The new models are expected to improve response time and command a premium of 10 percent over the existing Samsung LCD monitors. Samsung, which currently enjoys a marketshare of around 40 percent in the LCD monitor category in India, plans to increase its marketshare to around 50 percent by the end of the year.

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