By IANS,
Chennai : Daikin Airconditioning India Pvt Ltd (Daikin India) is hopeful of commissioning its split air conditioner line by July this year and growing its market presence from prominence to dominance, a top company official said.
“The 500,000 per annum new split air conditioner line targeting the residential segment will go on stream this July. The investment for the project is Rs.122 crore,” managing director Kanwal Jeet Jawa told reporters here Tuesday.
He said the new line will grow the company’s market prominence to market dominance.
Daikin India has been importing the air conditioners for residential segments and as a part of global policy, it has decided to go in for higher percentage of localisation so as to increase the market share.
The company’s plant in Rajasthan has a capacity to make 22,000 variable refrigerant volumes (VRV) – used in large-size buildings – and 1,800 chillers.
Jawa told IANS later that the yen appreciation last year had impacted the company as it was largely import dependent and the plan is to localise the components in a major way.
“We will to import compressors, controllers and heat exchangers while we will localise other components. The idea is to have 70 percent localisation levels. In Thailand, Daikin has a large compressor and the volume in India does not justify a plant,” Jawa said.
According to Jawa, the company has posted a turnover of Rs.1,000 crore during the first 10 months of the current fiscal and is confident of closing the year with a topline of Rs.1,200 crore.
Jawa said the company gets nearly 70 percent of its turnover from the residential air conditioners and the balance 30 percent from commercial and industrial segments.
“In terms of product-wise revenue split, 10 percent is from chillers, 20 percent from variable refrigerant volumes and 70 percent from split air conditioners,” he said.
“We are dominant in VRV segment and strong in the chillers market. In the room air conditioner market, our market share will be around 10 percent and is not in the top five players,” Jawa said.
Speaking about the market trend for air conditioners, Jawa said the market did not grow as expected this fiscal whereas the growth is expected to be around 15 percent for the next three years.