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Calcutta, June 19: The Videocon group has bought the manufacturing and marketing rights of Hyundai Electronics India to high-end consumer electronics and home appliances.

As part of the arrangement, Videocon, which manufactures 2 lakh CTV sets annually, will pay a royalty to Hyundai Electronics.

Videocon has already started producing CTVs under the brand name Hyundai at its Aurangabad facility in Maharashtra as well as the Salt Lake factory in Calcutta. Nearly 3,500 CTV sets are being sold in Bengal monthly.

The Salt Lake factory of Videocon will cater to Hyundai?s needs in the east. It will supply to Bihar, Jharkhand and Assam.

Videocon also plans to spend Rs 25 crore to market Hyundai products in the current financial year.

Videocon sells 20,000-25,000 sets of Hyundai CTVs per month. The demand for these is gradually picking up and Videocon might consider setting up a factory solely dedicated to Hyundai CTVs.

The optimum capacity required to set up a plant is sales of 80,000-1 lakh CTV sets per month.

Videocon already has manufacturing and marketing rights for Akai and Sansui products.

The company has started producing plastic moulds for television sets at the Salt Lake factory. Andhra Pradesh governor Sushilkumar Shinde has inaugurated the plant, which is being set up at a cost of Rs 10 crore.

?We used to source the plastic cabinets for our CTVs from outside, which would cost us more. The plant will help us reduce the cost and bring in operational efficiency. Time, too, will be saved,? said Gautam Sengupta, general manager of the company.

The Salt Lake factory currently produces 50,000-60,000 sets per annum. It currently produces CTVs under the brand name Sansui, Akai, Videocon and Hyundai. Refrigerators are also produced under the brand name Videocon. The factory has stopped manufacturing Whirlpool refrigerators, which it was doing under an contractual agreement.

The company has made an investment of Rs 100 crore in the Salt Lake factory after it bought it over from Philips India Limited in 1999. It has firmed up plans to invest Rs 100 crore more in the next two years.