Schneider Electric India, which has forayed into the retail market with introduction of switches, sockets and distribution systems for home and small and medium business segments, aims to garner 5 per cent share in this market within the next two years, a senior company official said today.

The retail initiative kicked off last year with the launch of Zencelo and Vivace range of switches and the neobreak distribution system in Kochi.

"We entered the segment as we saw a huge opportunity here. We have been catering to the B2B segment but now we want to move a step forward to tap the B2C market. With the launch of new products we expect to garner at least five per cent share in the retail market," the company's vice-president of retail channel sales Balaji Lenka told PTI here.

At present, the overall India market for products like modular switches, sockets, miniature circuit breakers (MCBS) and residual-current circuit breakers (RCCB) is pegged at Rs 2,400 crore, of which the home size is considered to be Rs 1400 crore, while the enterprise market is around Rs 1,000 crore.

The retail market is growing at around 15-16 per cent year-on-year, he said.

"A high level of education and awareness has led to a relatively large customer base that expects world class quality, service and aesthetics at an affordable price. We believe that Schneider Electric's legacy of innovation backed by its engineering and manufacturing expertise can fulfil these expectations," he said.

The company, a subsidiary of the euro 19.58 billion French energy management firm Schneider Electric, has introduced its new range of products in southern India, except Karnataka, and in Mumbai and Pune in Maharashtra.

He said the company will be exploring possibilities of brining in new variants of these products.

"We also plan to introduce two more new range products in the next few months," he added.

Schneider Electric plans to appoint 4,000 retail outlets nationally by 2012-end to make these products available across categories under the Schneider Electric brand.