Mitsubishi plans big on domestic AC market

After a low profile presence for the last few years, Japanese durable giant Mitsubishi is gearing up to garner a larger pie of the 1-million unit room air conditioning market.

Four years ago, Mitsubishi had entered into an exclusive arrangement with the Mumbai-based Nova Industries, to sell its products in India.

However, due to marketing and distribution inadequacies, the Japanese major could not carve a niche itself in the market. Industry sources said that Mitsubishi had first entered the Indian market in 1996, through an alliance with Baroda-based Air Command Industries, which had also been unsuccessful.

Mitsubishi now intends to take its brand on a national level by reinforcing the marketing and distribution strategies of Nova Industries. Mitsubishi is also planning to introduce several new models in the spilt AC range to capture a considerable market share of the 3 lakh unit spilt AC market in the country.

Says, Ajit Panicker, director, Nova Industries, "In the last four years, we have not been aggressive in our approach to make the Mitsubishi brand popular in the Indian household. However, we now intend to take the brand national and are revamping our distribution setup."

Currently Mitsubishi products are primarily sold only in certain parts of the western region.

Nova has recently entered the commercial air conditioners market.

The company is planning to sell over 3,000 split AC units in the current year. Nova currently imports these units from Mitsubishi's plant in Thailand.

Positioned at the premium segment of the room air conditioners, the Mitsubishi electric room AC models range between 0.8 and 2.5 tonne and are priced between Rs 32,000 and Rs 70,000 per unit.

Interestingly in the room AC market, the premium segment is dominated by Japanese brands like Hitachi, Daikin and National.

While in the popular segment, the main players are LG, Voltas, Carrier and Samsung. In India, the diversified Mitsubishi has a presence in automobiles, elevators and chemicals.

Split ACs constitute 30 per cent of the 1 million unit room AC market. In 2003, split ACs recorded a growth of 29.5 per cent, while the total room AC market grew by 15.3 per cent.

The industry is expecting that the share of split ACs will go up to 50 per cent of the total domestic room ACs market in the next five years.