Super Plastronics Pvt Ltd (SPPL), the brand licensee of Thomson TV in India, is investing ₹150 crore in a new manufacturing unit in Noida, which will come up in January 2019. The company intends to also start a fully backward-integrated manufacturing facility later, said Avneet Singh Marwah, CEO SPPL, Exclusive Brand Licensee of Thomson in India.

“The survival of any TV brand in India has to be Make in India,” he told BusinessLine. The new manufacturing unit, which will be its second manufacturing unit in Noida, will have a capacity of 30,000 units per month. This will take the company’s total manufacturing capacity to over 60,000 units per month by February 2019.

Thomson TV is planning to target around 10 per cent of the market share by 2022 from its current market share of 3 per cent.“Seeing the current scenario, the next five years belong to the affordable category brands (like Thomson TV) and these brands will take over the market share of the top three multinationals in the next five years,” said Singh.

Thomson TV, which is sold exclusively on Flipkart, fully manufactures in India and currently has three manufacturing facilities in Una, Noida and Jammu.

SPPL expects a turnover of ₹500 crore this fiscal year. The growth rate of Thomson TV is around 30 per cent month-on-month and this saw a spike during the festive season, said Singh.

When asked about tackling competition from global brands, Singh said that post the disruption created by online platforms in the market, customers have started showing faith in the affordable category brands like Thomson TV, just like they did in the case of smart phones. “They have realised that they were paying a huge amount of money not because of the product, but just because of the overhead expenses of these brands,” he said.

French company Technicolor SA-owned consumer electronic brand Thomson had re-entered the Indian television market eight months ago in an exclusive brand licensing agreement with SPPL.