Consumer durables. Consumer durables players ride on the momentum

Consumer durables and electronics players are seeing 20-30 per cent growth in the final week of this festival season, marked by Dhanteras and Diwali.

Eric Braganza, President, Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association, said, “In the last couple of days, there has been good sales momentum and this is expected to continue through the week till Sunday. We anticipate the overall industry to see 15-20 per cent value growth this season over the festival season in last year.”

Sunil Nayyar, MD, Sony India, said, “The market has uplifted itself from last year and we have received a very bullish outcome with overall estimated value growth of 30-35 per cent compared to Dhanteras sales last year. There has been a remarkable response from customers for the adoption of large-screen premium televisions, especially 55-inches and above.” This comes after a muted growth last year when the entire country was gripped by the pandemic.

Manish Sharma, CEO, Panasonic India & SA, said, “At Panasonic, we have seen a very positive response for Dhanteras with a growth of 24 per cent over last year. We hope to close the festival season with 50 per cent growth.”

E-commerce push

The growth is driven majorly by positive consumer sentiments and a robust demand for value proposition appliances such as smart 4K Android TVs, a connected range of ACs, refrigerators, washing machines, microwaves, and other lifestyle appliances. E-commerce is further driving the penetration. “We saw a good spike during Dhanteras especially in bigger size TVs over 43-inches. We saw a growth of 40 per cent in large sizes alone,” said Avneet Singh Marwah, CEO - SPPL, exclusive brand licensee of Thomson in India.

Players also expect to see the momentum continue in the upcoming wedding season. Deepak Bansal, VP-Corporate Planning, LG India added, “We have seen good steady growth this festival season over last year especially for premium products across categories. We expect the momentum to continue with upcoming marriage season.”

Raju Pullan, Senior Vice-President, CE Business, Samsung India, said consumer sentiment is at an all-time high for festival buying. “We saw a strong uptick during Dhanteras festival, clocking over 20 per cent growth compared to last year on the back of our Diwali offers and affordability programmes. This growth is mainly led by premium TVs and digital appliances as there has been an increased demand among consumers to equip their homes with latest technology to create high quality in-home experience,” said Pullan.

Chip shortages

While there have been concerns related to chip shortage, retailers said there have not been many challenges in terms of supplies of products. Nilesh Gupta, Director, Vijay Sales, said, “We expect to see a value growth of about 25 per cent in this season as consumers are upgrading to more premium products.”

According to Kamal Nandi, Business Head and Executive Vice-President, Godrej Appliances, though the weekend before Dhanteras saw a healthy 45 per cent growth, it’s too early to celebrate.