Berger Paints brings self painting for children

Kolkata, May 17: 'Berger Paints', India's third largest manufacturer of industrial and decorative paint with an annual turnover of Rs 1100 crores last year, today launched an innovative product for children for the first time in the country under the brand name 'Galaxy'.

Announcing the national launch of India's first 'do it yourself painting kit,' Berger Paints India Limited Managing Director Subir Bose said this unique and innovative concept was targetted to appeal especially the children who were increasingly becoming opinion leaders in brand selection.

He said the Galaxy's blister pack of magic solutions, paper cuts and brush would help the consumer to actually decorate the ceiling of his children's rooms on his own. Since Galaxy paint glow in the dark the illusion of stars, moons, milky ways and comets allows the children to get mesmerised in its outstanding effects for years together, claimed Mr Bose.

Moreover, he said, the Galaxy paint was extremiely consumer friendly and pose as an in-house weekend entertainment for all because of its 'do it yourself' concept.

Elaborating his matrketing strategy to popularise Galaxy as a leading pan India brand of Berger Paints, Mr Bose said besides making available the new product kit to all the major cities and towns of the country by June through a wide network of distributors, they hoped that the introduction of this innovative product would further push up their sales by another three to four per cent from the current financial year itself. Each do it yourself galaxy kit comes at a cost of Rs 800 with an introductory offer of Rs 750.

''Last year we did a business of about Rs 1,100 crores and with the introduction of Galaxy and some other products we hope to surpass it by at least six to seven per cent this year",The Managing Director of India's third largest Paint company said."Only Asian Paints and Nerolac are ahead of Berger Paints by small margin",Mr Bose pointed out.

He said at present Berger Paints produced about 140,000 tonnes of acerelic and solvent based paints to rule over 18 per cent of domestic market in the Rs 9,000 crore Indian Paint industry.

About his future plans in terms of capacity expansion and modernisation, Mr Bose said Berger Paint's 8th fully automated plant was coming up at Rewadi in Rajasthan by April 2007 at an estimated cost of Rs 35 crores. After completion, it would add another 600 kilo litres of solvent based paint to the company's production tally every year.

About the possibility of making forays into the export market, Mr Bose said Berger India does not consider the option primarily because of its non-viability.

''However, we have set up a fully owned plant for decorative paint in Southern Russian town of Krasnadar near the Black Sea at a cost of three million dollars last year to cater to the demand for Berger paint's Russian consumers,'' Mr Bose said the installed capacity of the Krasnadar plant was only about 400 kilo litres per month which at present was enough to meet the local demand.

''We are presently not looking beyond Southern Russia simply because of uneven competition from the western world,'' Mr Bose clarified replying to a related query.

UNI