An experienced Founder with a demonstrated history of working in the digital industry, Himanshu is skilled in Business Planning, Digital Marketing and Management.

Indian Smart TV market is still dominated by foreign players, what can be done to establish smart TV manufacturers of India as leaders in the industry? 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 semiconductor 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.

The price of raw materials for consumer appliances has increased and there is a price hike for Smart TVs. Moreover, Indian consumers are very price-sensitive, has there been any negative effects on the market after the price hike?

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.

What will be the future of consumer durables, specifically for the TV 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 TVs.

Recently, IT hardware got included in the PLI Scheme. Do you see consumer electronics/durable be included in the scheme soon? How will it 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 five percent customs duty on the import of opencell 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 four-six percent incentive that the PLI will offer to the domestic TV manufactures will help balance the high input cost.

Since lockdown and till now, what new trends have you come across in the Smart TV market?

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 3rd TV sold in India is an android TV which is one of the most user-friendly operating systems.