With continental headquarters in Asia, Europe, and USA, and vertically integrated with its parent company, Coretronic Group, Optoma is a pioneer in the world of projection technology. The extensive product range of Optoma includes projectors for portable, fixed installation and home theatre projectors. Optoma’s projectors are widely used in business, education and home segments. In an interaction with NCN, Vijay Kumar Sharma, Country Head at Optoma India, share Optoma’s, brand, product and market strategies for India.
What are your plans for the forthcoming year?
Optoma has the strong parentage of Coretronic, the world’s leading manufacturer of projectors and large displays, and we are keen to bring more innovative and high end solutions to the India market, apart from serving entry level education market as we have done for many years. Optoma is world’s number one brand in 4K UHD and DLP technology. We will build similar leadership position in India as well.
What are the marketing opportunities that you see in India?
We are hopeful that the high-growth trend which was there in 2020 in the home segment, will continue and grow in 2021. Secondly, the education segment, which was completely shut down in 2020, will open & grow in 2021. The Indian government is keen for digitization of education. We are very hopeful of increasing our volume in Indian market as a result.
How Covid-19, which negatively affected many industries, impacted your business?
Due to lockdown many people staying at homes enabled the 4K as well as the UHD content availability at their homes, driven by the increased availability of content on the OTT platforms and the improved network connectivity. We witnessed major shift in home segment purchase patterns and it helped us in to gain a bigger market share. As a dominant player in projector and home segment globally, we attained the leadership position in home 4K UHD space and become No. 1 brand in Q4 of 2020.
How do you plan to customize your products for different segments of customers?
At Optoma, we continuously endeavour to bring better products into both consumer and commercial segments, by adding smart features, enhancing colour performance, reducing latency, providing flexible installation options, and so forth. We have led the way to introduce the voice assistant supported projectors, high refresh rate gaming projectors, and premium ultra short throw 4K laser projectors, and we will continue to deliver innovative products to increase adoption in every segment.
What is the scope of home projector in Indian market?
In 2020, there was a major shift from small screen digital devices to large screens in the home segment. Consumers today want bigger size screens in their homes, living rooms & bed rooms whether it is to view movies, events, sports or shows. With advancements in projector technology, the affordable 4K, long-life Laser Engine and high brightness products now don’t require dark rooms and can work efficiently in ambient light and give users big screen feel and synchronize the 4K content with right display device to provide exhilarating experience.
Please brief your channel strategy and future outlook for India?
To drive the channel, we ensure clear, unambiguous channel policies which have helped Optoma to grow into a dominant player in the 4K home segment. Though, projectors segment was one of the worst hit segments after hospitality and travel industry in 2020, Optoma registered decent growth and doubled market share in the overall projector market. We will continue to maintain this growth and confident that we will make it to top 3 projector brands in India. Soon, we will launch our Interactive Flat Panel range of products in India.
