Avneet Singh Marwah is the Director and CEO of Super Plastronics Pvt Ltd, has played a pivotal role in expanding Kodak’s foray into the consumer technology- television vertical in India, as a brand licensee. He introduced Kodak TVs in India in 2016 and within three years, SPPL has introduced a wide range to television models in non-smart FHD, smart FHD and UHD series. Kodak HD LD TVs recently launched their official android televisions in partnership with Google. This has made them the only brand licensee in India to partner with google for android televisions.

Key Measures for Indian TV Manufacturers to Over Power Foreign Players
One of the biggest changes seen in 2020 was the growing realization of the ‘Make in India’ initiative. With restricted trade, India realized the need to be more self-reliant, and our honourable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s campaign of Atmanirbhar Bharat turned to be a game-changer.

We need more companies to invest in India, especially in semi-conductor plants. This is crucial, as we are the second-largest market for smartphones after China. For TV, we are the third-largest market. Within the next five years, we will be the second-biggest market.

The government recently has announced that they will welcome open-cell manufactures to invest in India, this will be a good value addition for Indian manufacturers.

Rising Price and it's Impact on the Market
With an increase in panel pricing, there has been a major shift in the market due to which the demand for television is slowing down. Currently, the price for a 32-inch TV has gone up by 350 percent, therefore, there is a shift towards the sale of larger screens.

Price and demand are correlated in India and after the price increase, numbers have slowed down. If this continues, the led tv market will witness degrowth this year.

The Future of Consumer Durables in the Television Industry
Penetration of consumer durable is low in India, there is a massive scope of growth. If we compare AC’s penetration in India it's only five percent, in China it's more than 150 percent. So, there is a huge opportunity for affordable brands.

Meanwhile, in India, there are more than 110 million households which still has CRT TV, so there is a huge replacement market for smart TV’s.

How Would the Recently Included PLI Scheme Help the TV Manufacturing Industry?
Firstly, raw material prices have increased by 350 percent over the last year. To add to it, the government had imposed a 5 percent customs duty on the import of open-cell for televisions. So, there is additional pressure on the companies and the bill of material cost for manufacturing TVs are increasing rapidly. The government needs to give some pushback and there should be some sentiment and movement in the manufacturing sector. The 4-6 percent incentive that the PLI will offer to the domestic TV manufactures will help balance the high input cost.

New Trends Induced in Smart TV Market Post the Lock Down
The biggest trend we saw, was the accessibility of the internet growing across. Applications like Facebook and YouTube are highly used in India, which is one of the reasons we saw a spike in smart TV content viewership. India is the second-largest country to have the maximum viewership of YouTube and one of the largest viewership of Facebook videos. Other than that, OTT viewership is at the top, therefore, the smart TV segment is growing. We have seen almost 70 percent growth on a year-on-year basis and by 2024, I think 95 percent of the market share will be of Smart TVs, with android being one of the topmost operating systems in this category. Currently, every third TV sold in India is an android TV which is one of the most user-friendly operating systems.