Godrej aims to be leader in refrigerator segment

Armed with a new range of refrigerators, Godrej Appliances Ltd, the appliances division of Godrej and Boyce Manufacturing Company Ltd, aims to be the leader in the refrigerator segment in the country.

Having made a re-entry into air conditioning retailing, Godrej Appliances Ltd aims to garner a higher share of the air conditioning market of the country.

Soumitra Ghatak, executive vice-president, marketing, sales and service of Godrej Appliances Ltd, said in Ahmedabad on Friday that while the company has been the leader in the Gujarat market for the past one year and a half years, it is a close number two in the overall refrigerator market in the country.

"With a whole new range of refrigerators, we aim to garner leadership position in the country," said Ghatak told reporters.

"We have also made a re-entry into the air conditioner market in April last. Until now, we were into manufacturing of heavy duty ACs and our clients included huge establishments such as Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC)," said Ghatak.

According to him, for the past few years Godrej has been selling between 3,000-4,000 air conditioners a year. But, he said that the company aims at a sale of over 20,000 air conditioners by the end of the current fiscal year.

"We will use Hitachi compressors in our range of air conditioners and back it up with the best service network. We intend to manufacture superior quality air conditioners with the least power consumption levels," Ghatak stated. Godrej aims at a sales turnover of at least Rs 100 crore in this fiscal year alone.

"Our target is to sell at least 50,000 units in the 2005-06 fiscal, and aims at a sales of around Rs 2,000 crore from the segment in the next two years," he said.

To begin with, four models in the window AC segment and three models in the split AC segment have been launched, but Ghatak said that more low-end models will be rolled out soon.

Commenting on the refrigeration segment, Ghatak said that the latest introduction, the GDP 225Z model, which will be launched in the Gujarat next week, will help Godrej consolidate its position in the state.