Supertron Electronics eyes 35% growth, announces diversification

Kolkata : Kolkata-based IT hardware dealer Supertron Electronics on Thursday announced an ambitious expected growth rate of 35 per cent for the current financial year.

The Rs 900 crore enterprise also declared plans for diversifying their business, 90 per cent of which currently constitutes of hardware dealerships of multinational IT firms including Dell, IBM and Acer, by strengthening their distribution network and also foraying into the telecom handset business.

?Over the last four years we experienced an unprecedented growth of over 300 per cent, that combined with an 18 to 20 per cent annual growth of the Indian IT industry, makes us very optimistic about our growth potential,? Nirmal Meharia, company vice president, Finance and Operations, said at a press conference here.

?We foresee that our growth will be aided both by our current stronghold in distribution and upcoming ventures. With the way things are progressing, convergence of IT and telecom is an evident trend,? he said.

The company, which distributes two of its own brands of hardware, Supercomp and Solitaire, said they were entering the Indian entry-level mobile handset market in about a month?s time and were also considering other digital devices.

While posting an expected group turnover of Rs 1,300 crores for 2010-11, company execs also went as far as claiming to foresee touching Rs 2,000 crore by 2012-13.

The group, which currently addresses 9,000 resellers nationwide through 27 branch offices and several other ?satellite branches?, said it was coming up with new branch offices in tier II towns and cities like Siliguri, Surat, Parwanoo, Coimbatore and Goa in the coming months.

In 2009, Supertron also started their own IT enabled services and online store services to ?make a small dent? in the segment which the firm said looked ?very promising?.

?We are also interested in distributing printers and anti-virus software and are currently talking to potential partners. We are also partnering Acer to distribute their line of smartphones to be launched in the coming months,? said V K Bhandari, company managing director.