Home-grown mobile phones and consumer durables maker Intex Technologies has forayed into refrigerator segment and expanded its washing machine portfolio.

It has signed Bollywood actor Madhuri Dixit as brand ambassador for both products for two years, according to Nidhi Markanday, Director and Business Head – Consumer Durable & IT Peripherals.

The new refrigerator costing ₹14,300 will be nearly 10 per cent cheaper than some of the competing brands, and available in the market in a week, she told newspersons.

The ₹6,200-crore Delhi-based company has added fully automatic washing machines, which is priced at ₹14,990, to its product range. The machine with 6.2 kg capacity comes with a ‘delay start’ feature that helps in setting delay start time from one hour to 24 hours. It has a ten pre-set programmes, she said.

Out of the total revenue, 85 per cent comes from mobiles and 15 per cent from consumer durables and IT products like speakers.

Markanday hopes the share of consumer durable and IT to increase to 25 per cent next year.

Total sale of refrigerators is around nine million units per year, while washing machine is around four million with multinational companies having around 70 per cent market share in both, Indian companies share the rest.

Intex would like to capture 2-5 per cent market share initially in this segment, which is annually growing at around 10 per cent, she said.

On choosing Chennai for a pan-India launch, Markanday said the city is the biggest market for the company’s appliances.

Intex has launched three models of single-door direct cooling refrigerators with a capacity range of 170 litres to 190 litres.

Intex has been growing at 18 per cent in the last three years, and hopes to maintain the same growth rate this year, she said without giving financial details.

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