Nikon India, a wholly-owned arm of Japanese camera maker Nikon Corp, is planning to strengthen its footprint in the Indian market with plans to roll-out a new shop-in-shop retail model across 20 cities. The company aims to create a dedicated area, which will exclusively retail and showcase various Nikon products, in camera stores across the country to be branded as SLR Zone.

One such SLR Zone has already been set up in New Delhi. The company would take the format to 19 more cities by end of this financial year. Nikon, a leader in professional or single lens reflex (SLR) cameras with close to 35 per cent share, has a 5 per cent share in the compact camera segment in India. During the course of the year, it plans to nearly double its share in the compact camera segment to 10 per cent while taking its share in the SLR camera segment to 40 per cent.

“The market for SLR cameras is 13,000 units at present, but compact cameras have touched sales of one million,” said Hidehiko Tanaka, managing director, Nikon India.

Nikon India launched its new range of compact and SLR cameras on Wednesday, priced in the range of Rs 7,450 and Rs 25,950. It plans to roll out more products during the financial year.

The company is also looking to hire 200 people who would guide customers on various Nikon products. As of now, the company has 580 dealers and is planning to take this network to 800 dealers by 2009-2010 year-end and tie-up with 1,100 dealers by end of 2010- 2011 year.