Samsung India is eyeing a bigger share of the home appliances market, particularly the microwave segment.
“It is a 1.6-million-unit microwave market in India. We claim 24 per cent market share. This year we are looking at 40 per cent growth,” Mr Mahesh Krishnan, Vice-President (Home Appliances), Samsung India, told Business Line .
Samsung has been playing second fiddle to LG in the consumer durables space. This week, it launched the CE73JD, a line of 21-litre convection microwave ovens. There are two colour variants – black and red floral priced at Rs 10,530 and Rs 11,640, respectively.
With these, Samsung now has solo, grill and convection microwave ovens of capacity ranging between 21 litres to 36 litres. The microwave ovens are priced between Rs 4,450 and Rs 26,990.
“We expect our newest offer to be the growth driver in the microwave segment since it is entry-level and Indian markets are price-sensitive,” Mr Krishnan said.
Samsung now imports microwave ovens from its Korea facility and proposes to continue doing so.
Owing to rupee depreciation and its considerable import content, the company had to hike prices by 6-7 per cent since November 2011.