Calcutta, June 16: Carrier Midea India — a 60:40 joint venture of Chinese consumer appliance maker Midea and US air conditioner maker Carrier — is betting on a diversified product base to generate additional business in the second half of this calendar year when AC sales usually taper off.

Primarily a residential AC manufacturer, with 70 per cent of its sales in this segment, the company is looking to strengthen its commercial segment and jack up the sale of other domestic appliances such as microwave and water dispenser.

“Close to 70 per cent of our business takes place in the first six months of the year. So, in the next six months, we are looking to focus on the institutional segment. We are also looking to strengthen our appliance segment as well,” said Krishan Sachdev, managing director of Carrier Midea India, said.

He said the firm was targeting a turnover of Rs 1,000 crore in 2013 and planning to introduce more consumer appliances from Midea’s product range.

The company had utilised Carrier’s distribution network (around 1,700 distributors) to roll out air conditioners in 2012. This year, the number of distributors has been increased to 2,000.

However, the depreciating rupee and price revision on account of the imposition of stringent efficiency norms could have an impact on the air conditioning business.

“We have to revise our entire range of air conditioners to meet with the Bureau of Energy Efficiency standards next year,” Sachdev said.

While the company is yet to assess the impact of the revision of efficiency norms on prices, market sources said the hike could be in the range of 5-10 per cent across various manufacturers.

Sachdev said the company’s new manufacturing facility at Bawal in Haryana, which began operations in October last year with an annual capacity of 700,000 units, would help it to cater to the demand in the next few years.

The company has already utilised Rs 150 crore of the planned Rs 500-crore capital expenditure.

Sachdev said the bulk of the remaining amount would be used for brand-building and network expansion.