Altec Lansing gets aggressive in Indian market

CHEANNAI

SEPTEMBER 9, 2006

Riding high on the digital boom, US-based Altec Lansing is going all out to
become the most popular brand in Indian market, across the product categories.
The company, which recently restructured its channel policy, is now in the
process of appointing more partners, mainly in upcountry markets. "We are
adding more than 100 resellers in the current program and will work closely with
the channels to drive our business. We are working out various channel programs
which include incentive schemes, performance-based remuneration system, product
training (information), demo support and more," said Jessica L Chua,
Regional Marketing Director (Asia Pacific), Altec Lansing Technologies.

Chua is leading these initiatives from the forefront for Indian market and
working closely with Rashi Peripherals and Trifin Information Technology, who
are the two distributors here. While Trifin takes care of north and east
regions, Rashi addresses the south, west and part of central India.

Altec Lansing would be launching six new models in India shortly to meet the
growing demands here. According to Chua, "India is also fast catching up
with the world market in terms of trends.  Digital boom is very much
visible here and revolution is happening on the PC front, MP3 players and
cellular phones, except for Flat TVs which is yet to pick up here."

The company is betting on both metro and upcountry markets for growth and
performance.  "We are not only looking at Class A and B markets. But,
even, C and D where the potential and buying power is high. In fact, some of our
hi-end products like IM9 were first sold in Hubli and other upcountry markets,
than in the metros," she said.

Rashi Peripherals, which currently has 45 branches in the country, is
expanding its reach through 100 branches in the next two years. "Our
expansion program will directly help Altec Lansing to reach more number of
cities/towns in the country. Rashi will be driving the end-user programs for
Altec," said Sachin Kadam, Product Manager at Rashi Peripherals.

Altec Lansing has about 30 product skews, mainly divided into four
categories-such as Powered Audio, Portable Audio, Personal Audio and Interactive
Audio. Powered Audio is a major revenue earner contributing about 70 percent to
the total turnover, and speaker systems starting from 2.0 to 5.1 come in this
category. Altec is enjoying a good market share in PC and MP3 speaker systems,
while getting aggressive in satellite radio, telecom and home AV systems. It
will work with non-IT channels too in the coming months.

Altec Lansing speakers are available in the price range of Rs 550 to Rs
15,000, covering all four categories.