Hyderabad: After having cornered a substantial share of the consumer electronics market, LG Electronics India now expects its personal computer business to replicate the success and clock revenue of $250 million in 2005.

"LG's overall revenues in India is expected to be $2.04 billion in India of which 12 per cent would come from the personal computer business," R Manikandan, general manager, sales and marketing - IT Products, LGEIL said.

He said the share of PC business is increasing every year. "In 2003, the share was 10 per cent in 2004 and will be 12 per cent in 2005."

In 2003, LG's revenue from IT products was $99 million and increased to $157 million in 2004. This year it is expected to grow to $250 million.

While LG expects its PC shipments to grow 37 per cent in unit term, in revenue terms it is expecting a growth of 60 per cent.

"To ensure that revenue growth outpaces unit growth in a market where per unit realisations fall every time, we will concentrate on high-end products," Manikandan said. For further growth, the company is planning another push in the smaller towns to increase geographical coverage.

"For taking the market away from the competition, we will also introduce products that cater to preferences of local population", he said. Apart from depending on conventional IT reseller channel for reaching customers, LG will also rely on the retail network it has built for its consumer electronics business. "We are also opening a chain of exclusive stores for our IT products. Currently there are 32 LG Cyber Shoppes and we plan to increase it to 100 by this year end," Manikandan said.

A recent IDC report states LG to be the third biggest player in the consumer desktop category, recording a sequential growth of 22 per cent in the first quarter of calendar year 2005 despite the market shrinking by 22 per cent.