Amkette bets big on audio segment, to launch 12 products

Amkette, the company almost synonymous with floppy disks, an extinct storage device, is banking on its newly-formed audio segment to bolster its revenues in the coming two years.

The company moved from floppy disks to computer peripherals like flash storage in 2007.

The Director of Amkette Rajiv Bapna told Deccan Herald, “We realised that the personal storage space had become too limited and going into personal technology seemed the right thing to do.”

Right now, Amkette's business is divided into four broad segments: entertainment; IT products; personal storage and the newly-formed audio segment. Amkette has formed a subsidiary called Amkette Acoustix, the R&D for which is done in their lab in New Delhi.

“R&D is very important to us and we earmark 7-8 per cent of out income for R&D,” Bapna added. Amkette has invested Rs 15 crore in their audio segment and would be launching 12 products in the next three months.

On January 31, 2013, it shipped its last batch of floppy disks from its Udaipur plant and stopped further production of the 1.44 MB storage device. The company now makes headphones (wired and wireless), mice, keyboards and close to 60 IT products.

Last year Amkette launched its Evo TV gadget which can turn any TV into a smart television. Powered by an Arm Cortex A9 processor and Android 2.3.4 OS, the Evo Tv has been well accepted by consumers. “Evo TV has sold tens of thousands units,” Bapna said without revealing the exact number of such devices sold.

Bapna explained that the value proposition of the Evo TV lies in the fact that a smart TV costs close to Rs 50,000 whereas an Evo box could be bought for around Rs 10,000.

The company in FY '12 clocked revenues of Rs 80 crore and expects to close fiscal '13 with an increase of 50 per cent at Rs 120 crore.