Blue Star could report a considerable growth in room airconditioner segment despite a 5 per cent decline in the overall room airconditioner industry with a soft and erratic summer during 2012. With a significant rise in off take from the residential segment, Blue Star could report a six per cent growth in value terms in this segment, according to B. Thiagarajan, President, Airconditioning & Refrigeration Products group.
Addressing presspersons here on Monday after launching a new range of contemporary and stylish room airconditioners for the residential segment, Mr. Thiagarajan said the company would continue to aggressively target the residential segment in the current year also. The industry had also started witnessing 15-17 per cent growth in room airconditioner space at present, he said.
However, there was a decline in sales in the airconditioning sector as a whole with a sluggish growth in the commercial infrastructure and office spaces, Mr. Thiagarajan said. The corporate sector also witnessed a decline in growth and there was no growth in employment. “There is correlation between employment numbers and the use of airconditioners. Each person employed in the corporate sector consumes 50 sq. ft. of airconditioning space. This is not happening because of no growth employment”, he said.
The window airconditioners were facing poor demand with a tilt towards the split airconditioners. The ratio was 80:20 between split and window airconditoners at present, he said. “We expect the demand for window air conditioners to steadily decline in next three years as it happened in markets such as Far East and China,” he said. However, “We will continue to stay in for window airconditioners as well”, he said.
Blue Star was planning to promote its inverter line-up of residential split airconditioners as the company witnessed a good demand for these products. In addition to one-on-one inverter airconditioners, Blue Star was also offering a break-through product “multi-inverter split AC” wherein an inverter-technology based outdoor unit can be coupled to three indoor units to aircondition up to three rooms simultaneously. The energy saving was more than a five-star rated split airconditioner, Mr. Thiagarajan said.
