MUMBAI: Sony India has set aside Rs 1.5 billion or 33 per cent of its total marketing budget for the festive season as it seeks to achieve a sales turnover of Rs 28.5 billion, an increase of 50 per cent over the previous festive season.

Last year, the Japanese electronics major had spent Rs 1 billion towards advertising and promotion during the festive season to boost sales.

Sony will undertake multi-media campaign for Bravia, Cyber-shot, Xperia Tipo and Handycam. This will include ATL and BTL activities such as print and television commercial, cinema, outdoor, Web and PR activities during the October-November period.

The Japanese electronics major, which is going through a rough patch due to dwindling sales, has launched products cutting across product categories such as Television, Digital Imaging and IT products, during this festive season in the Indian market.

Sony‘s product launch for festive season includes: Bravia KD-84X9000, Personal 3D Viewer HMZ-T2, DSLT a99, DSC-RX100, and Vaio with Touch-screen.

Sony India MD Kenichiro Hibi said, "This festive season with our revolutionary product portfolio and compelling offers, we are confident of achieving 50 per cent increase over our last year’s festive season sales, taking it to Rs. 2850 crores (Rs 28.5 billion) this year."

The company had earlier ramped up its marketing budget by 25 per cent to Rs 4.5 billion for the current fiscal and had set a target of 30 per cent growth in sales. Its marketing spend in the previous fiscal was Rs 3.6 billion while sales stood at Rs 63.13 billion, up from Rs 54.46 billion in the trailing fiscal.

India, one of the fast growing markets for Sony, currently stands at 6th position in contribution to global sales and plans to gain the fifth position by end of fiscal.

As part of its marketing initiative for the festive season, Sony has also tied-up with Sony Pictures Entertainment for the much awaited James Bond action thriller ‘Skyfall‘ in order to gain a higher mind share during the festive season.