Canon plans 100 franchise stores in 50 cities
Wednesday, 12 January 2011, 00:10 IST
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Canon India has clocked Rs 1,257 crore turnover during 2010 as against Rs 840 crore last year. The company is now focusing on opening a chain of 100 Canon franchise stores across 50 top cities and towns during 2011. Canon India initiated the opening of branded stores in 2010 and has so far set up five stores, of which four have been opened in Delhi and one in Bangalore. "The expansion is to create consumer awareness, which is lower amongst general consumers, as compared to Sony India, which has 215 branded stores," senior vice-president of Canon India, Alok Bharadwaj said. "Our major focus this year, which will take away lot of our resource and efforts, would be to increase the number of Canon branded stores. Each Canon store will be spread across 800 sq ft and 1,000 sq ft and will cost Rs 30 lakh approximately. In the long run, we look at opening 300 standalone Canon stores across 150 cities. We are taking the franchisee route to open all our stores,” said Bharadwaj. "We need to create a very strong consumer connect and brand association in the wider segment and not just amongst photo enthusiasts. Each showroom should be able to create Rs 3 crore worth revenue per year. In retail, if the showroom is located in a good place, the sale should never decline," he added. Canon is also looking at investing Rs 120 crore in advertising and marketing during 2011 and Rs 30 crore in opening Canon branded stores and Rs 4 crore in its service centres. "We are doing all this to create a better consumer experience. We currently have 800 people and we are in the process of employing 100 more. This year we are number one in copier segment and in the digital SLR, which accounted for Rs 150 crore in the Rs 450 crore contributions from the camera business during 2010," said Bharadwaj

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