Chennai: "If you have a PC at home," says Narendra Bansal, managing director, Intex Technologies (India) Ltd, "then there will be atleast one our products in there." What is the basis of the 'Intex inside' claim?

The product portfolio of the Rs186-crore turnover company consists of around 300 items spread across 20 categories and sells over 2-million units per month. Apart from selling computers, DVDs and other hardware under its own Intex brand, the company also supplies parts like speakers to major branded manufacturers like HCL and TV tuner card to Samsung.

The 10-year old Delhi-based company is now targetting the growing southern market by expanding its branch and the distribution network. "The target is to increase our southern sales to Rs70 crore from the present Rs43 crore." While Intex Technologies will be increasing its distributor strength to 170 this year, it will also get into B and C class towns where the demand growth for computers are high.

Currently the company has six branches in the South and will add nine more this fiscal - two in Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, one in Tamil Nadu and the union territory of Pondicherry and three in Karnataka. At the national level, it plans to have a branch in 24 B & C class cities.

In addition, the company plans to reorganise its marketing by forming special teams for specific IT products and also a separate channel for the consumer electronic products like DVD and home theatre systems. Speaking about the consumer electronic product segment that the company entered last year Bansal says, "This year the segment is expected to generate around 10 per cent of the total sales. New products like digital camera, MP3s, wireless products will also be launched.

Sponsoring high profile cricket matches like the India-Pakistan, India-Sri Lanka and India-South Africa one day cricket series and also other national sporting events, the Intex Technologies got a nationwide attention. The company hopes to take this forward with an ad budget of Rs10 crore this fiscal.

"We will not use celebrities to promote our brand," says Pankaj Dubey, general manager, sales and marketing. According to him, after-sales service is what is going to determine the success or failure of a brand as the product features are getting standardised. "There will always be something extra in our product offerings vis a vis that of our competition in the same price band. For instance, our monitors are much safer to the user's eyes and this is our unique selling proposition (USP)."

Shruging aside questions on the potential threat from low-cost computer manufacturers, he says, "People prefer a Rs25,000 computer over Rs13,000 one. There is nothing called a low-cost computer — what these things really are is slow computers with limited features."

Intex Technologies makes computers, UPS, DVD and sub woofers at its Jammu plant and imports the remaining items from China. "The Chinese manufacturers make the products according to our specifications. We don't buy from their product shelf," says Bansal.

According to him, the prospects for hardware companies are good, thanks to the e-governance moves by the state governments. The company sold 5,000 computers at Rs3,000 per unit to the Goa government.