Air-conditioner and commercial refrigeration company Blue Star Limited expects a 17 per cent growth in 2017-18 with its market-share expected to increase upto 12.5 per cent in the coming months.
Company Joint Managing Director B Thiagarajan told a press conference here today that the market picked up in the last one year and accelerated further in the last three months, he said.
"In the calendar year 2017, the market grew by 10 per cent even though the GST hiccup was there. There was degrowth in the first half of the year," he said.
The second half started picking up but in the last three months it is further accelerating, which means that in the 2017-18 fiscal, the estimated growth of the market is 12 per cent, he said.
As against this, Blue Star's growth is 12 per cent in the calendar year 2017. "If you take financial year 2017-18 as against the market growth of 12 per cent, the growth will be 17 per cent. So we have grown 5 per cent more than the market," said Thiagarajan.
He said the company's market share expanded to 11.5 per cent this year and is likely to increase up to 12.5 per cent in the coming months.
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He said Blue Star has set anew benchmark with the launch of 40 new models ofhigh energy-efficient 3-star and 5-star inverter split air-conditioner.
The products promise upto 30 per cent extra cooling power resulting in powerful cooling, faster temperature pull-down and extra energy saving, he said.
The company which turned 75 this year boasts of its state-of-the-art, small range of inverter split air-conditioners, which meets the 2018 BEE energy-efficiency normsand matches the requirements of all the segments.
Expecting a harsh summer this year in some parts ofthe country with a good monsoon expected, Thiagarajansaid the market would grow anywhere between 15 per cent and 20 per cent in the next fiscal.
The focus would be to expand its base inTier II, III, IV and V cities as most of its consumers, mainlythe middle class, are from these cities, he said.
Comparing Indian products with Chinese, Thiagarajansaid that of the 130 million consumed across the globe,105 million were produced in China alone. He, however, wasoptimistic about the prospect of the air-conditioners.
He said "India's market size is 5.5 million units and also the penetration is just four per cent, but still it is a growing category. Whether it was demonetisation or GST - even during that time this particular product continued to grow."