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Early onset of summer and resilient pent-up demand have helped LG Electronics register high double-digit growth in the home appliances segment in the January-March period, which it says was its strongest quarter.
Vijay Babu, Vice-President, Home Appliances-LG Electronics India, said, “In the home appliances segment, we have recorded revenues of ₹5,500 crore in the January-March quarter, registering a growth of about 56 per cent over same period last year. Even compared to January-March period in 2019, we have registered a growth of 36 per cent. This is the highest ever revenue that the company has registered in the past 24 years in the home appliances segment.”
While the country is coping with the second wave of the pandemic, the Korean consumer appliances major said it has enhanced its production and warehousing capacity to manage supply chains.
Broad-based growth
The company said the growth has been broad-based across categories such as refrigerators, air-conditioners and washing machines. “We have witnessed even higher levels of growth for high-end products such as side-by-side refrigerators, fully automatic top-load and front-load washing machines. With heightened focus on health and hygiene due to the pandemic, we have been bolstering our product portfolio with latest technology and features to meet the evolving needs of consumers,” Babu added.
The company said it has been enhancing production and warehousing capacity for cooling products in line with strong pent-up demand trends in the past few months. It began gearing up for the summer season by beginning pre-production for ACs as early as November and for refrigerators in December. Despite a challenging environment due to the second wave of the pandemic in the country, Babu said the company expects to record 40 per cent growth in April-June quarter over the same period last year on the back of scorching summer temperatures.
“We are strategically focusing on strengthening our presence in the water-purifier segment. In addition, we are seeing strong demand even in nascent categories such as microwave ovens and dishwashers. In December, we also launched LG Styler, which is a steam clothing care system to disinfect clothes, in line with our focus on health and hygiene,” he added.
For LG India, nearly 6 per cent of its sales in the home appliances segment comes from the e-commerce channel. “We expect this to increase to 8-10 per cent in the coming days,” Babu added.
On the recently announced PLI scheme for AC components, Babu said, “We have been manufacturing ACs in India at two facilities in Greater Noida and Pune. This move will certainly benefit Indian AC manufacturing and will encourage the industry to boost local production.”