In-car entertainment will soon become a necessity: Auto experts

Indian car users are increasingly redesigning the interiors of their vehicles with 17 inch television sets with sub-woofers, amplifiers, Dolby Digital surround sound and bluetooth technologies to watch movies.

Some spend close to Rs 5 lakh to put in place the best in-car entertainment systems, a few spend more than the price of their car on such technologies. TOI reports that on an average, a person spends about 4 per cent of the cost of a car to install an in-car audio and video system.

Travel operators are tapping into this to offer the option of a ‘video coach' - a Toyota Qualis, Chevrolet Tavera or Tata Indica - at just 50 paise per kilometre more than the regular rate.

At present, luxury cars such as a BMW and Mercedes come built with a video option. Tata Motors offers video entertainment in high-end variants of the Tata Indigo and Tata Safari.

The in-car entertainment video market, which is at $75 million now, is estimated to grow to $300 million by 2011.