In a bid to increase its presence in the Indian market, US-based electronic water appliances maker AO Smith has decided to set up a residential water heater manufacturing plant in Bangalore.
“While our plant will only be operational by 2010-11, we will start sourcing electronic water heaters from our existing plant at Nanjing (China) which has an exclusive assembly line to cater to the Indian market,” David R Warren, vice-president (international), AO Smith, said without disclosing the investment size.
The facility will be used for exporting AO Smith products apart from catering to the domestic market. The shipping process for importing the products from China are already underway.
The company aims to capture a 30 per cent market share in the estimated Rs 650-crore electric water heater market in India.
“The Indian electric water heater market reported a sale of 16 lakh units last year and is growing at double-digits annually,” said Tamal Chaudhuri, national sales and marketing manager, AO Smith.
