Godrej & Boyce to launch youth-friendly products

In an attempt to be successful in its image makeover and emerge as a youth brand, consumer durables major Godrej & Boyce is looking at launching newer 'youth-friendly' products this year and even planning sequels of its successful products.

Godrej & Boyce, at present, operates within 5 categories - microwave, airconditioner, refrigerator, DVD and washing machine - and plans new product rollouts in its established segments only.

"Not only modern day products and modern-day brand ambassadors to build on style and uniqueness for our newer range of products, but we are also using youthful and vibrant colours for our products in order to stand out as a youth brand," said Kamal Nandi, vice-president (sales and marketing) - appliances division, Godrej & Boyce.

The newer range of products would display colours like melon red, kiwi green, nectar yellow and the like.

"We surveyed 2,300 consumer homes across India and consumers within 25-35 years of age to find out what more they would want in the products that they are using. All the products that we would launch in 2007 would be on the basis of that," Nandi added.

The company launched the EON range of refrigerators in September 2006 and were very successful as its market share within three months grew by 4 per cent to a 16 per cent at present in frostfree refrigerator category, Nandi said.

The company is therefore looking at launching a sequel of the EON range of refrigerators this summer that would harp on value-additions in terms of features and convenience.

These would be priced at only Rs 2,000 more than the previous EON range for similar capacity.

The company would also launch advanced-technology airconditioners in the first week of March this year.

"The new range of airconditioners would have sensors in the remote as well as in the wall unit. This would make it more convenient for the consumers as whereever you would go, the remote would pick up the temperature and condition the air around you accordingly, instead of the wall unit doing it," explained Nandi. The AC range would cost Rs 45,000 for a 1.5 tonne and is expected to consume 30 per cent less electricity than other ACs available in the market at present.

As this would be a premium AC range, volume sales may not be very high initially and therefore the company is looking at manufacturing about 10,000 of these per annum initially.

The company is also planning a woman brand ambassador for its new AC range.

"We are preparing ourselves to compete with electronics giants like Samsung, LG, and Whirlpool with our new EON range launched last year and also its sequel due this summer. We are not competing with Sony right now as we are not into the television domain, but is keeping our options open for future," Nandi added.

The company expects to finish this financial year with Rs 1,000 crore turnover and is looking at 50 per cent growth in the next fiscal.