Godrej Appliances Business Head and Executive Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Kamal Nandi
Durable maker Godrej Appliances is looking for nearly 30 per cent increase in sales to touch Rs 2,700 crore turnover in the ongoing fiscal on the back of new launches in the air conditioning and refrigerator category. “In this financial year (2014-15) we are targeting a turnover of Rs 2,700 crore. Last year, we have done Rs 2,100 crore business,” Godrej Appliances Business Head and Executive Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Kamal Nandi told PTI. Expressing confidence of achieving its target, he said: “We are very much on the course from the first month (April, FY’15).” Due to bad market situation the company was unable to meet its expectations last fiscal, Nandi said, adding that for this year, it was expecting a good traction from the air conditioning and refrigeration segment with an attractive line up scheduled this season. “Our biggest contributor would be AC and refrigerators,” Nandi said. Godrej is aiming to increase its market share targeting the premium segment of air-conditioning and refrigerators by adding new models of 5 star range of AC and frost free and direct cool refrigerators in its lineup. “We are targeting to increase our market share by 5 per cent in the air-conditioning segment and in refrigerator by 3 per cent this financial year. We are targeting primarily high end of the segment that is where we relatively smaller player,” he said. Presently, Godrej has six per cent market share in the AC market, but in the 5 Star Category, it has 12 per cent market share, he added. “Our ACs are doing extremely good this year and registered a growth of 65 per cent plus,” Nandi said adding that sales of air conditioners had picked up in south, west and central regions but due to showers in the northern region in areas such as Punjab and Haryana, it remained slow. On Godrej’s refrigerator market, he said:” It is also doing well. In fact, in March and April this year, it has a very good growth. We have launched new products this year in the direct cool and as well as in the frost free segment. Our expected growth in the refrigerator category is 25 per cent”. This financial year Godrej is planning to launch over 35 models in the premium end of frost free refrigerators. “All of launches if you see this year is targeting the premium end of direct cool and frost free,” Nandi added. Godrej has already completed launches of premium end of direct cool, which sell in summers more. For washing machines, the company has planned 16 new launches this season post July, when the season starts. “We have lined up launches this year for semi automatic and fully automatic, July onwards... 16 new models are getting launched,” Nandi said. Godrej may also go for a price cut in July as the rupee is stabilising against the US dollar. “The rupee has just dropped from 62 to 58.50. There is drop of one and a half rupee to a dollar. If the trend continues, I think yes, there would be a opportunities of giving more attractive prices in the market,” he said. However, he added: “As of now, I do not see any possibilities of price change”. It would also depend on factors such as the policies of the newly elected government and excise rebates. “Let’s see how the new government brings out the reforms and policies. What happens to the excise drop from 12 per cent to 10 per cent which is only up to June 30...how the government reacts...,” Nandi added. Apart from production and sales, Godrej Appliances is also looking inside issues as gender diversity at its two manufacturing units at Pune and Mohali. The company which has around 10 per cent ofits workforce as women is going to increase the ratio to 50:50 in next five years. “We are already in the process of recruiting more and more women in the plant and our objective is to reach 50:50 in both the plant in next five years,” he said. The company was targeting the female ratio to be 20 per cent by the end of this fiscal, he said. “At our Shirwal (Pune) workshop our entire green AC line (5 Star Category) is run by women work force,” he said. It has a capability to produce 2.5 million refrigerators, 0.8 million Washing Machines and 0.3 million AC.