Godrej Appliances lines up Rs 500 crore investment

KOLKATA: India’s largest home grown white goods maker, Godrej Appliances plans to invest Rs 500 crore over the next three years to expand capacity and set up a new plant in Pune in a move aimed at completely localising its production process right till the component level.

The company’s business head Kamal Nandi said the proposed investment will be to start local manufacturing of front-load washing machines, hi-end frost free refrigerators and air-conditioners, and their components which are currently largely imported. Godrej Appliances last investment was three years back to set up Rs 200 crore plant in Mohali.

Godrej Appliances at present has manufacturing capacity for 3.7 million units of refrigerators, one million units of washing machines and 0.4 million units of air-conditioners. The company has around 15-16% market share in refrigerators, 11-12% in washing machines, 10% in chest freezer and around 5% each in air-conditioners and microwave ovens.

The company is targeting Rs 6,000 crore sales by 2020-21 from Rs 4350 crore it will close this fiscal, said Nandi. We are growing faster at 15% as compared to the 7% industry growth rate and aiming for 20% growth next fiscal. Nandi said Godrej will soon venture into kitchen appliances and air coolers.

After the exit of debt-ladden Videocon from the Indian market, Godrej Appliances is amongst the top five appliance maker in the country along with LG, Samsung, Whirlpool and Panasonic

[“source=economictimes.indiatimes”]