LG is the crystal clear leader
 LG beat Samsung in the final rankings to emerge as the channel champion in the LCD category. LG did better than Samsung in four out of the five parameters— price-performance, marketing and branding, service and support, and channel relationships.
Nevertheless, LG reported an influx of parallel imports, thus coming second on the product availability criterion.
Viewsonic, which emerged third, witnessed a fall in channel confidence owing to an increase in in-warranty failures and longer repair and replacement turnaround. The company also lacks the wider market coverage required to take on LG and Samsung.
Acer, despite marketshare gains during the year, doesn’t have a mass channel connect. This may be because it is sold through select partners. AOC as a brand has done well in a short period of time, but it still lacks market coverage especially in the north and south.
Price-performance
While LG and Samsung are considered on par when it comes to product features and performance, pricing is where LG scored over Samsung. Resellers polled said that LG was more price-aggressive than Samsung, by a margin of almost 10 percent (Rs 700) on entry-level 17-inch monitors. Also in 2008, when the dollar fluctuations led to frequent changes in prices, LG was the first to reduce prices; it was also fast to communicate the changes to resellers.
Viewsonic is perceived to be a good technology brand, followed by Acer. AOC is considered a value brand among resellers, but ranks lower in channel perception when it comes to product performance and reliability.
Product availability
On the product availability front, Samsung was ranked higher than LG because of the influx of parallel imports of LG LCDs. Even some of LG’s regional distributors who participated in the survey said that while the company did all things right, it lacks a strong policy to counter such imports.
Availability-wise, Samsung and LG have the widest geographical coverage. As in 2007, Viewsonic continues to lack strong coverage in the east. Acer has a wider availabilty than AOC, which suffers from a weak channel penetration in the north and south.
Marketing & branding
The two leading brands are ahead in awareness and customer-pull. However, LG was rated the more aggressive of the two in terms of marketing, with more tactical promotions and local advertising. A few Samsung sub-distributors, we spoke to, said that their repeated requests to Samsung to roll out schemes to match LG’s failed to get a favorable response.
LG’s channel communication was also ranked higher because it was swifter than its peers in disseminating information about new products, prices and schemes. While Acer and AOC both recorded low marks on the criterion of channel marketing, Acer because of its brand association inthe PC category, enjoys a better brand awareness than AOC.
Service & support
LG and Samsung were rated on par on most sub-criteria of service and support except that during the better part of H2 2008, LG ran a scheme which provided customers a 5-year warranty on select 19- and 22-inch models as against the standard 3-year warranty provided by other vendors. This tilted the score in its favor.
Next in line were Acer, Viewsonic and AOC. Viewsonic saw a dip in the quality of its warranty support, and came behind Acer.
AOC needs to strengthen its post-sales support in a segment that is seeing increasing competition from PC OEMs.
Channel relationship
On this parameter LG came on top, followed by Samsung and then Viewsonic, Acer and AOC. We polled resellers to rate competing brands on various aspects including quality of channel managers, fairness and transparency of vendor policies, and management of channel issues.
LG is perceived to be more channel-responsive than its peers. Escalation management is swifter, and its channel managers are more accessible and friendly. Also, LG is timely and fair in back-end pay-outs.
While Samsung’s score improved on this parameter as compared to last year, respondents complained of significant delays in back-end pay-outs although the number of disputes involving rebates have come down. One aspect where Samsung has improved over the last year is accessibility and friendliness of its local and regional representatives.
Winner in the Flat Panel Display Category in Channel Champions 2007
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