Home appliances maker Videocon has drawn up aggressive plans to increase its market share in air-conditioners by nearly three-fold from six per cent to 20 per cent by end-2017.
This would translate into increasing the domestic sales of ACs from 4.5 lakh units in 2015 (January-December) to 10 lakh by 2017. Last year, the company sold 2.6 lakh units. The company was eyeing a turnover of Rs.1,100 crore for 2015-16 from Rs.580 crore recorded last year.
Briefing reporters here on Friday, Akshay Dhoot, Videocon, Head of Technology and Innovation said: “We are aiming to become the leaders in the domestic AC segment by widening our product offerings from 36 to 65 and increasing distributor’s selling point from 3,600 to 9,000. We have also started export. But the numbers are small.”
Recently, Videocon increased the production capacity at Aurangabad plant from three lakh to five lakh units per annum. This could be further increased to 7.5 lakh units, without any constraint, he said.
To meet the increasing demand, Videocon is also planning to open manufacturing centres pan-India, including one proposed at Madurai.
Ramnath Subbu reports from MumbaiAsked about the delay in commissioning of the Madurai plant, he said it was due to economic recession. It was slated to take-off very soon. However, Videocon was yet to finalize production volume, plant size and investment plans.
Mentioning that Tamil Nadu was the second biggest market for ACs, Sanjeev Bakshi, Videocon Industries, Country Head-AC said the company had a market share of 9 per cent in Tamil Nadu and it aimed to capture 12 per cent by 2015.
“We are on track with regard to the first-four months sales for the current year. We will sell 4.5 lakh units this year and 7 lakh units next year,” Mr. Bakshi said.
Unveiling the new AC, Mr. Dhoot said that the four million unit AC market in India was highly fragmented with a clutch of players such as Voltas, Blue Star, LG and Samsung.
“The AC segment has been instrumental in our consumer electronics growth story and we wish to be the leader.”
The new ACs are powered by quantum edge technology and are built to take on extreme temperatures as high as 55 degrees centigrade. The two split ACs of 1.5 tonnes and are priced at Rs.37,990 (3 Star) and Rs.45,490 (5 Star).
