| Many of the white good giants who have put up stalls at the Coolex 2008 expo (CII's exclusive exposition on air conditioning and refrigeration) being organised in Chandigarh these days, while interacting with Business Standard, admitted that price hike due to increasing inflation was inevitable. |
| All the major white good giants like Godrej, Samsung, LG, Voltas and Whirlpool are participating in the Coolex 2008. They revealed that the price hike would be in the range of 2-5 per cent in the AC and Refrigeration products. |
| The mounting inflation has resulted in increasing the input costs of finished goods and hence, the companies are forced to transfer these increasing input costs to the customer, sooner or later. Raw materials like steel and copper prices have gone up. |
| Raman Deep, Regional Sales Manager Godrej said the price hike in cooling range products was inevitable and most probably the hike would be effective from April 10. |
| Raman admitted that increase in price could affect the sales of products, but the company would be trying to neutralise the effect of price hike by offering incentives to the customers that could be in the form of gifts. |
| Echoing the same sentiments Arun Wadhwa , AC Product Manager, LG electronics, said they would also hike the price of their cooling range from April 10 and it could be in the range of 3-5 per cent. |
| He added since quality of the product could not be compromised, the only way to bear the higher input costs was by increasing the product price. |
| "Many companies may not be pushing up the price of cooling range by compromising on quality, but since our company is quality conscious, we have to increase the price" Wadhwa opined. |
| However, to negate the effect of the price hike on consumer, most of the companies believe that it could be balanced by providing value added features to the customers. |
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