Godrej & Boyce Manufacturing is eyeing acquisitions in Sweden and Spain. The company is also looking at setting up offices in China and USA by this year-end. "We have recently opened offices in Dubai. We are always planning expansion because we want our company to feature in the world's first 10 positions in appliances business within the next 5 years. At present, our company ranks 36th in the world," Phiroze D Lam, exec director & president of Godrej & Boyce, said. The company is also planning a new plant at Pune, alongside its existing plant, at an investment of Rs 100 crore."We have just launched a new range of high-end frost free refrigerators, the EON range. Currently, our existing plant at Pune is capable of manufacturing 3.5 lakh pieces annually of EON frost free refrigerators, but we would soon need to add capacity in order to manufacture more as demand for the EON range is likely to go up," George Menezes, COO of Godrej & Boyce, said.The new plant would have a manufacturing capacity of another 4-5 lakh frost-free refrigerators.EON range of frost free refrigerators, that come with unique designs and features, is expected to sell about 1 lakh pieces in the next 6 months. The refrigerators are priced between Rs 15,500 to Rs 26,000."With this launch, we expect our company's share in the frost-free refrigerator segment to grow from 15% at present to 25%. We have a promotional advertisement budget of Rs 50 crore for the EON range," Menezes said.The company's turnover for the appliances business for 2005-06 stood at Rs 750 crore.The company is targeting a turnover of more than Rs 1000 crore by the end of this fiscal."Exports this year have already touched Rs 300 crore and the target is to earn 20% of our turnover from our export business," Lam said.
