LG's Kim: A silent warrior who has big plans for the future

Kim Kwang Ro, former managing director of LG Electronics India (LGEIL), knows the importance of choosing words carefully. This, and his relative lack of facility with the English language, is possibly why he is known to be a man of few words. "I built LG in India from scratch-all 50 acres of it," he says of LG's state-of-the-art factory in Greater Noida. There's more than a grain of truth in that statement. LG first entered India as Lucky Goldstar in the early 1990s and operated through exclusive agents and importers, but retreated following difficulties in working with them. It re-entered the country in 1997, a year after the government allowed foreign companies to set up shop in India, with Kim, a 20-year LG veteran, at its helm.

"We came to India with a single-point objective," says Kim, who is moving to Bangkok as head of LG's Asia Pacific and Australia operations, "and that was to be the #1 consumer electronics player in the country." That's a goal he has achieved. From a turnover of Rs 125 crore in 1997, LGEIL has grown into a Rs 9,000-crore company. Its target for 2010: Rs 45,000 crore. LGEIL has a market share, by volume, of around 30 per cent in most of the segments it operates in-in refrigerators, it is 30 per cent, in TVs, it is 26.5 per cent colour TVs, in washing machines, it commands a 36 per cent share, and accounts for 38 per cent of all microwave ovens sold in India. It also has a significant share in the air-conditioner and mobile phone markets. Kim handed over the baton to LGEIL's Deputy Managing Director Moon B. Shin on January 1, 2007.

-Aman Malik

NUMBERS OF NOTE

Rs 2,34,903 crore: The amount raised in 2006 by Indian companies and banks via equity and debt issues in domestic and overseas markets

1,030: The number of FIIs registered till December, 2006

Rs 9,431 crore: The amount Prasar Bharti will need to turn digital in order to telecast Commonwealth Games 2010 in high-definition TV format

$103 billion (Rs 4,63,500 crore): The total value of India's exports in 2006

Rs 70,000 crore: The current market size of India's FMCG sector

$172,425 (Rs 77.59 lakh): The price of the Montblanc Solitaire Mountain Massif Skeleton. The pen is made of 18-karat white gold and studded with 1,277 white and 123 blue diamonds. Only three were made in 2006 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the German company's founding in Hamburg

$1.7 billion (Rs 7,650 crore): The losses Sony will probably incur selling PS3s in 2007. It is estimated that Sony spends $700-800 to make each PS3, against its selling price of $600

7.25 per cent: Projected SSI (small scale industry) contribution to GDP in 2006-07, compared to 6.80 per cent in the previous financial year

75,000: The number of new engineers and computer scientists that UK produces annually

$7.4 billion (Rs 33,300 crore): The amount invested by private equity (PE) firms in 299 deals in India during 2006. Of this, $2.5 billion (67 deals) flowed into the country in the last quarter alone. These figures do not include PE investments in real estate

37 per cent: The import tariffs on electronic security products. The figure for telecom equipment is 12.5 per cent

NOTED

OPENED: By the Railways, the container business to 14 private operators, including Anil Ambani-promoted Reliance Infrastructure Engineering, Gateway Distriparks and IL&FS, ending the monopoly of Concor. The move will swell the government's coffers by Rs 2,000 crore annually.

PROPOSED: By the government, a plan to compulsorily blend 10 per cent green fuel with petrol and diesel from 2017. This means Indian auto-makers will need to tweak their car engine specifications to meet the new fuel policy norms. The short-term target of the proposal is 5 per cent blending by 2012 and 10 per cent by 2017.

PLANNED: By US hamburger chain Burger King, which owns 11,129 restaurants in 65 countries, the launch of its brand of restaurants in India. The company has mandated Kotak Mahindra to scout for a partner. Burger King's entry will shake the monopoly of McDonald's, which is firmly entrenched in Delhi and Mumbai.

DECIDED: By the Centre and the states, to phase out Central Sales Tax over the next four years. The phase-out will begin in the next financial year-a year behind schedule. CST, currently levied at 4 per cent, will be cut by one percentage point every year over the next four years. It is estimated that CST will generate more than Rs 25,000 crore in the next financial year and the one percentage point cut will result in the states losing revenues of about Rs 6,250 crore.

FOILED: By the police, a major terrorist attack on IT campuses in Bangalore by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). The police has asked IT companies to beef up their security arrangements after it nabbed the terrorist and recovered arms, ammunitions and maps indicating the locations of IT majors Infosys and Wipro and the Bangalore airport.

RAISED: By SEBI, the aggregate ceiling on investments in ADRs (American depository receipts) and GDRs (global depository receipts) of Indian companies and the equity and rated debt of overseas companies by domestic mutual funds from $2 billion to $3 billion. Prior to this, SEBI had raised the investment cap from $1 billion to $2 billion in August 2006.

WAR IN INDIA'S FLEET STREET

It's war time in the newspaper industry, especially in Mumbai. In a mad scramble for circulation-and the ad rupees that come with it-newspaper houses are going all out to lure readers with ever cheaper subscription offers and buy-one-get-one-free schemes that were hitherto the staple of FMCG and consumer durables companies. The protagonists in this battle: the Times of India (ToI) Group, Hindustan Times (HT) and DNA.

Says Ravi Dhariwal, ED, Bennett Coleman & Co: "We offer Mumbai Mirror at an annual subscription of Rs 89. There's another scheme under which readers get ET or Mumbai Mirror or Maharashtra Times free with ToI. And most people opted to get a free copy of ET and subscribed to Mumbai Mirror," he says. HT's business paper is offering a one-year subscription at Rs 299, while Business Standard has recently launched a scheme at Rs 750 per year.

-Anusha Subramanian