The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Low prices, high volume is the strategy

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 13, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Low prices, high volume is the strategy

Susan Muthalaly

Moser Baer changes the face of the home video market

CHECKING PIRACY: A Moser Baer home video seller at Richie Street. — Photo: S.R. Raghunathan

CHENNAI: You may not get a `Pokkiri,' but you will get a quality print of evergreen `Baasha' for Rs. 34 — and it is totally legal. Optical disc maker Moser Baer is revolutionising the home video market with its competitive prices.

With its comparatively low prices (DVDs for Rs. 34 and VCDs for Rs. 28), Moser Baer primarily intends to capture the market segment hijacked by video pirates.

The way G. Dhananjayan, Moser Baer COO - Entertainment Business, looks at it, they are using technology to offer consumers the original product. He said technology is so sophisticated nowadays, it enables the piracy market to thrive.

To combat it, one has to offer the consumers a worthwhile deal. "We are helping customers and making a profit," he said. Mass production is the key to Moser Baer's prices. Instead of producing 5,000 copies of a title and making a profit of Rs. 50 on each, Moser Baer uses its resources as the world's second largest optical media manufacturers to produce 50,000 copies, with a profit of Rs. 5 each, he said. Although customers are receptive to the prices, most of them who frequent pirated film vendors are either after the latest releases or obscure foreign film titles not available legitimately in the Indian market.

`Choice is important'

T. Niloufer (name changed), who regularly buys the latest titles off the black market, said, "If people can buy something cheap, they will do so. So if a company is offering films at prices lower than pirated DVDs, I would buy them. But choice is important. As far as I know, Moser Baer has only old titles." Naresh, who sells pirated videos, said his sales have not dipped at all after the entry of Moser Baer into home entertainment. "Films like `Mozhi' and `Pachaikili Muthucharam' are doing very well. My customers all want new films," he said.

For Darshan Dayal, a film buff and collector of home videos, the primary concern is quality.

He never buys pirated films because quality is not assured. That's why he prefers to go to a video rental, where he pays Rs. 70 to watch a film once instead of buying a pirated copy for Rs. 80.

RIC Video Library owner Mulchand Golchhe is worried about Moser Baer's rapid expansion into the home video sector.

"Right now, they are retailing a lot of regional languages such as Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam. We don't stock too many of these," he said.

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