MIRC Electronics, owners of Onida brand of electronics, proposed to set up a new Rs 400 crore manufacturing facility in Maharashtra to produce air-conditioners, a top company official said today.
The facility, to be the company’s fifth plant in the country, would initially assemble air-conditioners and later manufacture them, MIRC Electronics Chairman and Managing Director, Gulu Mirchandani said here.
“We will put up a facility of one million capacity. We are looking at putting it up in Maharashtra. Investment will be around Rs 400 crore,” he said after unveiling the new range of air-conditioners.
Stating that the facility would initially assemble the air-conditioners, he said the company would also look to manufacture washing machines from the facility.
MIRC Electronics, Vice-President (Marketing), Vipul Mathur said one of the reasons for selecting Maharashtra was due to ’sales tax benefit’ offered by the state government.
Asked on the company’s future plans, Mirchandani said: “The Group’s current overall size was of Rs 1,600 crore and the aim is to take it Rs 2000 crore by 2014”.
On diversification plans, he said the company was looking at ‘kitchen appliances’ and this would be the focus area going forward.
“We have also launched the induction cookers (as part of diversification),” he said, adding, the company looks to enter refrigerator business after consolidating in the kitchen appliances.
He said Onida was looking to increase its market share to 18 per cent from the present 14 per cent in split ACs.
On sale of window ACs, he said by next year the company would be phasing it out due to poor demand. The company has about five per cent market share in this segment.
Observing that inverter split air-conditioners market was expected to grow at a fast pace, he said the price difference between an inverter air-conditioner and a BEE five star rated split air-conditioner was Rs 15,000.
“It actually saves about 50 per cent of energy,” he said.
For marketing the new range of air-conditioners that were launched today, he said, the company has allocated Rs 50 crore towards it.
The company had sold about 3.2 lakh air-conditioners last year and intends to sell about five lakh units this year, he said.