By IANS,
Kolkata : Consumer goods manufacturer Whirlpool India Wednesday said it plans to treble its market share in air-conditioning machines by 2012 from five percent at present.
“We are selling around 100,000 units every year now. We have a plan to take it up to 300,000 units in 2010 as demands from tier II and tier III cities are increasing substantially,” Shantanu Das Gupta, vice-president, Corporate Affairs and Strategy-Asia South, said at a press conference here.
The total retail segment market size of air-conditioning machines is 2.2 million units, which is expected to touch 3.2 million units by end of 2010.
Whirlpool India is a subsidiary of the Whirlpool Corporation.
Das Gupta saw sales of Whirlpool India across segments growing by 20 percent in 2009-10.
“We have been seeing encouraging recovery in sales during Diwali as well as during the post-Diwali lean season,” he said. The other home appliance categories in which the company has its presence are refrigerator, washing machine and microwave.
The company raised its prices across categories by two percent in December 2009. Das Gupta, however, denied media reports saying the company would again raise prices.
“We have seen media reports about white goods makers planning to raise prices but let me categorically say we have no such plans now.”