What AIWA’s Plans For Re-entry In India Mean For The Electronics Market
With its headquarters in Japan, the global electronics brand Aiwa has grand plans for its operations in India. The company has already invested a substantial $10 million for its phase-1 and has launched some five new product lineups in the TWS and general audio sector. Why are we talking about this, again? It’s because Aiwa has been gone for 18 years, and now it’s back.
The company’s India MD has said that Aiwa is looking to stand by the ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ vision and will be setting up a brand new manufacturing unit for the same. It will also partner with several OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) during the second operational phase commencing before September.
What Happened To Aiwa?
The Japanese brand was a huge success in the 1970–90 period after which the sales dropped until 2003 when the company exited the Indian market. Sony acquired it later, tried reviving it, rebranding it to a more young and PC-centric electronics brand but that failed to work out too.
Now, the company is almost 70 years old and re-entering the Indian electronics market with television sets, air purifiers, and high fidelity speakers.
What’s Aiwa’s Plan?
For all intents and purposes, the firm aims at making India the global hub for exports and wants to leverage GOI’s recent production-linked incentive schemes. The company has already been given the mandate to establish a base for all export-related activities for Made In India products. That said, Aiwa, which is starting out slow, has set a billion-dollar long term revenue target with its brand in India.
To achieve these lofty dreams, the company has planned to invest north of $1 billion during the course of the next 5 years. Production will be led by audio devices and television sets having already launched 5 headphones in the mid-range segment. These products are being sold on Amazon and Reliance Digital physical stores as of May 2021.
Parting Thoughts
With startups like Boat and Crossbeats and more premium players like Sennheiser, Bose, and Sony commanding a majority of the audio sales, Aiwa should expect some initial resistance in the audio segment. But with the right moves, we might be looking at the next household name in the Indian consumer electronics market.
Or do you think the market is already saturated?
