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Neha Kaushik

New Delhi , Aug. 15

THE first half of the year has not given the domestic consumer electronics and durables industry much to cheer about. In fact, the two largest segments of the industry - colour televisions (CTV) and refrigerators - have seen a decline in the period.

The de-growth has been even more pronounced in the first quarter of the current fiscal with industry officials claiming that the introduction of the value added tax (VAT) regime in April has played spoilsport for growth in the segment.

According to industry data, the CTV segment de-grew by 0.4 per cent in the January-June period in volume terms, while in value terms, the sales declined by 6.4 per cent. The decline was more significant in the April-June period, with sales of CTVs dipping 5.3 per cent and in value terms by 14.1 per cent.

As per ORG-GFK data, the decline was spearheaded by the conventional CTV category, whose sales declined by 19.8 per cent in the first half of 2005, and by 22.4 per cent in the April-June 2005 period.

In contrast, the flat CTV category, which accounts for approximately 40 per cent of total sales, saw a sizeable jump with a volume growth of 78.3 per cent and a value growth of 50.6 per cent in January-June 2005. In the first quarter of the fiscal, the segment saw a volume growth of 36.2 per cent and value growth of 25.8 per cent.

A similar trend could be seen in the refrigerator segment with frost-free sales seeing high double-digit growth, while direct cool refrigerators saw a double-digit decline.

In fact, while sales of frost-free refrigerators jumped 53.9 per cent in January-June 2005, those of direct cool declined 14.9 per cent.

Overall, the refrigerator segment saw a decline of 4.3 per cent in volume terms and two per cent in value terms in the first half of the year.

Meanwhile, consumer durable manufacturers are hoping that the second half of the year proves to be a better one as the festival season is a key driver for the industry.

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