Japanese airconditioner maker Daikin is looking at 20 per cent growth in its turnover this fiscal on account of innovative range of products.

“We are aiming to grow 20 per cent this financial year,” Daikin Airconditioning India Managing Director K J Jawa told PTI. Daikin Airconditioning India had a turnover of Rs 2,200 crore in FY 2013-14.

Daikin’s major growth driver would be inverter room ACs and VRV (Variable Refrigerent Volume) segment this year, he said.

The company is also expanding its sales network and focusing on non-metros and tier 2 and 3 cities, he said.

“Our plan is to expand our dealership network to 2,500 this year from the existing 1,800. We are also expanding to 17 branches from the existing 11 and going to places like Raipur, Bhubaneshwar and Guwahati,” Jawa said.

Daikin, which has a modern manufacturing unit at Neemrana in Rajasthan, is planning to expand its capacity to one million unit in the next three years from its present 500,000 units.

“Daikin is in the process of deploying Rs 330 crore on the brand and capacity building to enhance its growth and achieve the target,” Jawa added.

The company has recently started exporting room AC units to Sri Lanka, but the focus will remain on the domestic market, which is huge and widely untapped, Jawa said.

Daikin has launched inverter AC units powered by its patented HFC32 technology, a next generation refrigerant that bears only one-third of global warming potential (GWP) and curtail greenhouse gas emissions compared with R410A & R22 refrigerants used by other makers, he added.

“We want to grow with the innovative range of products. We are promoting inverter AC which is the future. We would provide technology of future at appropriate price and a wide range to choose,” he said.

Apart from residential AC units, Daikin is also expecting good growth in the industrial cooling as demand of mass comfort is increasing.

“We would grow 50 per cent in the VRV segment and 17 per cent in the chiller business. The demand would come from industries as hospitality, institutes, automobile industry, real estates etc,” he said.

According to Jawa, the recent upgradation of norms by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency put pricing pressure, which led to increase in prices between 6 and 9 per cent on five star AC units.

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