Vu grows television sales in India in FY20, open to selling stake

KOLKATA: Smart television maker Vu Technologies said the company has managed to grow its volume sales by 14% in the current fiscal despite the television category reporting a decline in unit sales in 2019, chairperson Devita Saraf said.

Saraf attributed this to the brand’s millennial buyer base which it is targeting with customised products and starting to sell through Amazon. Earlier, Flipkart was the primary platform for sales.

Vu has also exited the basic television range in India. However, Saraf said by value the company will either hold onto its 2018-19 revenue of Rs 1,000 crore or may report slight grow since television prices have dropped last year across the range due to drop in global panel prices.

“Over 90% of our buyers are below the age of 40 years. Our televisions are customised both for picture and sound for over-the-top media services and cricket. In a recent exchange programme in Flipkart, we saw almost 57% of the models which were exchanged are that of Sony, Samsung and LG,” she said.

Vu, which started selling through Amazon since Diwali, has sold over 47,000 units till now. Around 30% of the business is generated from offline stores which is growing. As per company estimates, the brand enjoy around 8-9% value share in the Indian market and 5-6% volume share.

Saraf said Vu has been making some television models in India in the sub-40 inches, but since a bigger part of the business is from larger sizes there is not much capabilities that is available here. “It is for this reason majority of our products are made abroad since the technology is not available here. We are experimenting with local manufacturing and may expand it too in case we get the technology here,” she said.

Vu is open to the idea of raising capital by selling stake. At present, the Saraf family completely owns the company. “We are not actively pursuing it, but open to selling stake. The partner needs to be strategic one since we don’t require huge capital as we are not a mass brand,” she said.