Soon Kwon (third from left), managing director of LG Electronics India, with chief operating officer Yasho V. Verma (right) at the launch of a refrigerator priced at Rs 1.76 lakh in New Delhi on Monday. (PTI)

New Delhi, April 11 (Agencies): South Korea’s LG Electronics expects to double its revenue in India to $9 billion by 2015 as rising income and growing urban households expand the domestic consumer durables market.

LG Electronics India, which sells consumer appliances, IT hardware and mobile devices, plans to grow its revenue by 25 per cent in 2011 and 2012 each, chief operating officer Yasho V. Verma said. “Last year, this industry grew about 12-13 per cent. This year we are expecting it will grow about 14 per cent and next year around that figure,” Verma said.

LG India reported sales of Rs 16,000 crore ($3.6 billion) in 2010 and expects to touch a revenue of Rs 20,000 crore ($4.5 billion) in 2011. It will also invest around Rs 800 crore in 2011 to ramp up capacity. Verma said high prices of fuel and manufactured products would not affect sales.

Several consumer electronics firms have recently raised prices by about 3-5 per cent, citing high input costs.

LG India expects to raise prices if input costs go up further. “If raw material costs go up, we’ll have to pass it on. The trends are showing that they are going to go up, but at what rate and at what percentage it’s difficult to predict now.”

Future strategy

LG expects its Indian operations to overtake sales in Korea in the next three to four years. “The Indian market is growing fast and in the next three to four years we expect that revenues from here will exceed LG’s domestic sales in Korea,” said Soon Kwon, LG Electronics’ president (South West Asia) and also the managing director of LG Electronics India.

To drive faster growth in India, Kwon said the company would introduce more products suited for the market here. The company today announced its entry into the water purifier market through the launch of a product priced at around Rs 40,000.

Besides, the company today launched a refrigerator in the premium segment.