For over 32 years, the Videotex brand has been there for countless moments in family rooms across North India. Since its inception way back in 1984, Videotex has grown leaps and bounds as one of India’s premier LED Television ODM/OEM company. Arjun Bajaaj, CEO & Founder, Videotex International spoke to EM more about the brand, company business, and future plans.
1. How has the journey been from last year till now?
The journey has been quite challenging on price war and Technology, further fueled with a lot of changes that were happening in the country like the riots in Delhi, then the outbreak of the virus, which led to temporary shut down of manufacturing business, leading to immense business loss. To add to that, with the increase in cases and no surety of the lockdown ending, or its extension, is going to prove very impactful for all the companies. The issue that started from lack of means to get the raw materials from China has now extended to shut down in India. Undoubtedly, the journey has been a tough ride. But with the support of the government body and associations, we hope to have a better remaining year.
2. How do you manage in this cut throat Competition?
The competition in the market keeps growing each day, there are so many companies out there who are offering so many things and varieties to the consumers. But we are able thrive despite the cut throat competition because of our strong manufacturing unit in India and China, as well as our relation with our suppliers, service partners and sales partners. We have also understood what the consumer wants and needs over the years and have offered them with the best of technology and product featuring the most advanced features in the television sets. All of this has made it possible for us to meet the consumer needs and has always kept us ahead of our competition.
3. What are the new technologies that have been lined for the brand this year?
The upcoming technologies that we would be using in our range of televisions would be Bluetooth enabled Smart TV’s that would allow our users to connect their TV’s to wireless headphones or music systems. Our products will also have an increase in our RAM from 1 GB to 2 GB and the ROM shall be 16GB from the 8GB. Over the years, we have been providing the consumers with the best of content and continuing with our promise, we will be adding more content partners in the coming months. We also have recently partnered with the ‘dbx-tv’ to give our consumers the best of sound experience.
4. With the slowdown in the economy due to the outbreak, how has it affected the TV Panel industry & how are you handling the situation?
The supply chain has been affected majorly, as various raw materials coming from China have been at halt and there has been no government support which has been provided. The companies are being charged with demurrage for the goods in customs which should not have been the case as the country was under shutdown. For us, we have enough raw material for the upcoming month and a half for uninterrupted production. Parallel, we hope the Smart TV sale will rise post lockdown as people have realized that is the most important source of entertainment especially in Covid Times, & it allows the family to spend time together and stream unlimited content available.
5. You are a brand licensee partner of Telefunken, what made this collaboration possible?
We introduced Telefunken in the Indian markets in the year 2019. The key thought was to bring the German based technology experience for all our Indian consumers. Adding further, since a lot of popular brands like Thomson and Kodak had started to come to India, we realised that we should have a brand with a global name to compete with them. That’s when we did a survey and decided that we should go ahead with Telefunken. Telefunken enjoys a strong reputation globally and has a strong market share of in European Markets. With Telefunken, joining hands with Videotex, we have each one of the Indian audience mapped, along the growing segments. It is ranked 72nd amongst the Top 100 brands Worldwide, recognised all over the world for best quality and latest technology. Telefunken has a Market presence in over 35 countries with a high market share of almost 8-10 percent in most of the countries.
6. What hurdles did you come across while setting up the consumer base of Telefunken televisions?
Being an International brand, the hurdle for Telefunken revolved around competing with the existing global brands & stay active in the price war that is constantly fluctuating in the market. The underlined fact remains; too many options in the Industry for the consumer to choose, from a vast variety. Currently, our hurdle has been COVID-19, which has lead to the shutdown of units, and with the government stopping the supply of the non-essential commodities; it has halted our plans pertaining to the brand.
