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Nina Varghese

Plans to open 15 galleries this fiscal

Chennai , Nov. 21

Hunter Douglas Window Fashions India Ltd, the 100 per cent subsidiary of the $2.2-billion Dutch major, plans to target the residential segment with its range of blinds and shades.

Mr Arun Kr Singh, Business Head, Hunter Douglas Window Fashions India, said with the increasing incomes in India and exposure to other cultures, people are spending money on life style products. Hunter Douglas entered the Indian market with mainly with industrial products. The company decided to introduce some of its consumer products in India because these products were already coming to the country, he said.

The company plans to open 15 galleries in Hyderabad, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Pune, Kolkata, Chandigarh, and Lucknow this fiscal. In the next financial year, it ramp up to 50 galleries. The company currently has galleries in Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai.

NEW TRENDS

Mr Singh said that one of the new trends in window covering was that people were going in for skylights and glassed-in balconies, which brought natural light into the room. Hunter Douglas has come out with blinds for the skylight, which are both manual and automatic. This would cost about Rs 30,000 per system, he said.

The window covering market in India is estimated to be about Rs 150 crore with 40 per cent being in the organised sector.

Hunter Douglas India, which has a turnover of Rs 45 crore, has its manufacturing facility at Silvassa with the capacity of 700 blinds a day.

Mr Singh said the Hunter Douglas has factories all over the world many of which are not working to full capacity. This coupled with lowering of import duties makes it cheaper to import some products than manufacture them in India. But once critical mass is achieved, it would consider additional manufacturing in India.

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