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Sriperumbudur, Feb. 3: Samsung India Electronics expects to clock a 35 per cent growth in turnover in 2013 on the back of a 50 per cent increase in sales of refrigerators and split air-conditioners.
In 2012, the company had a market share of 24 per cent in refrigerators and 13 per cent in air-conditioners. It had earned revenues of Rs 20,000 crore.
“The growth expected is something similar this year. We earned Rs 20,000 crore last year. We had cost pressures the previous year and absorbed a part of it. But it was not a low growth year as projected,” said K. Mahesh, vice-president (home appliances), Samsung India.
He was speaking on the sidelines of the launch of a digital inverter series of frost-free refrigerators and a range of air-conditioners at its facility in the Sipcot (State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu Ltd) special economic zone.
About 65 per cent of the company’s business come from the mobile and IT verticals, 35 per cent from consumer electronics and 50 per cent each from audio/video and home appliances. The company has exited the window AC segment.
“The home appliances market grew 7 per cent in 2012 and the premium categories such as frost-free refrigerators led industry growth. Frost-free refrigerators contributed 25 per cent to the overall refrigerator business and split ACs contributed 88 per cent to the air-conditioner space,” Rajeev Bhutani, head (home appliances), said.
He said the key consideration for consumers was energy efficiency, adding that the urban replacement market will drive demand in the higher end of the price spectrum. “The 5-star rated air-conditioner models will constitute 30 per cent of the entire volume sales in 2013,” he said.
Samsung has introduced 26 frost-free refrigerators and 29 split air-conditioners. They will be manufactured at the Chennai facility, while compressors for the refrigerators will be imported from China.
Set up in 2010, the facility in Sriperumbudur is the sixth refrigerator manufacturing facility in the world. The plant has an installed capacity to manufacture 1.2 million refrigerators and 4,50,000 air-conditioners and exports 10 per cent of the products to the Saarc countries.
The overall market size for refrigerators and air-conditioners in volume terms stands at about 7 million and 2.5 million units, respectively.
Meanwhile, last month, Samsung Electronics received approval from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change for UN Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) business based on sales of its range of energy-efficient refrigerators.
The use of these refrigerators reduces electricity consumption and earns the company certified emission reduction units as much as the amount of reduction.
Samsung India initiated its CDM project in September 2010 and received the government’s approval in July 2011.
The reporter was on a sponsored trip to Sriperumbudur
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