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CVD Inc to set up Rs 220 million plant in Hyderabad

The plant will be operational by September 1999 and will assemble DVD players and Ebox, a proprietary DVD based product.

T O D A Y

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Talking to reporters in Hyderabad, CVD International CEO Rao Channapragada said the Indian arm has tied up with leading film studios including Ramoji Rao Studios and Usha Kiron Films for replicating Telugu and Tamil movies on to DVDs.

Also, the $12 million United States company, floated by a few non-resident Indians, has tied up with major international players like Warner Home Studio and Minerva Systems to replicate English movies into other languages at its Hyderabad unit.

''These DVDs will be marketed in the US, Europe, Africa and the Gulf region. We expect to reach Rs 350-400 million turnover by fiscal 2000,'' he added.

The Hyderabad plant will also assemble the Ebox, a product combining PC, DVD/VCD/CD players, a game station, Internet connectivity, a six-channel speaker system and a wireless keyboard.

It will enable e-commerce, e-communication, Web browsing and online multimedia education.

''The product will be sold at Rs 60,000 a unit from September onwards,'' H Ramesh, managing director of CVD Discs India Private Limited, said.

When the Hyderabad unit will have an annual capacity of 3.3 million units of Ebox and DVD players, the company has set a target of assembling about a 100,000 units for the export market and about 25,000 for domestic market, he added.

The company will target at middle class homes apart from educational institutions for these products.

Meanwhile, a marketing-cum-servicing network is being put in place in India and China, Ramesh said.

In the initial stages, the company intends to assemble the DVD players and Ebox units after importing them in semi-knocked down condition.

''We may have to pay about 40 per cent import duty. The prices of these products are likely to fall further with the fall in import duties,'' he added.

The Indian arm will be a key designer and provider of DVD software, interactive games and animation exclusively, Raju Kanchibhotla, president of logic designers, an ally of CVD Discs India said.

UNI

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