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Our Bureau

MR ARVIND UPPAL, MD, Whirlpool India, (right) with brand ambassadors Kajol and Ajay Devgan, at the new products launch in the Capital on Tuesday. — Ramesh Sharma

New Delhi April 3 Whirlpool India on Tuesday announced an investment of Rs 156 crore for production and marketing purposes over the next year-and-a-half, in an attempt to capture the numero uno slot in the home appliances category by the end of the year.

"We are just a whisker away from the our closest competitor LG, in the domestic home appliances market. Now we are aiming for the number one position and plan to fill the existing gap with new products and aggressive marketing," said Mr Shantanu Das Gupta, Vice-President, Marketing, Whirlpool India. "We plan to invest around $20 million (Rs 86 crore) over the next 18 months to be utilised in all aspects of production of our product line including strengthening our manufacturing facilities in Faridabad, Puducherry and Pune," he added.

"The company's operating profit have gone up considerably from Rs 2 crore during the nine-month period April-December 2005 to Rs 44 crore for the same period in 2006 and we hope to maintain the growth and achieve net profits by 2008," said Mr Das Gupta.

The company, earlier during the day, launched four new products under the refrigerator, washing machine, air conditioner and dryer categories.

It also earmarked Rs 70 crore as its ad spend for the current year, which would include the television campaign for the new products launched to go on air within the next 10 days.

Whirlpool grew at 19 per cent in the last fiscal (2006-07) and is looking at an overall growth of around 20-25 per cent in the financial year 2007-08. Its turnover for the nine-month period ending December 31, 2006 stood at Rs 1,345 crore.

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