Daikin India is eyeing a bigger market share in the room air-conditioners segment. The company is set to open its R&D centre by June to offer customised Daikin products, which meet Indian conditions. It is also looking to expand its production capacity and scouting for location for another plant in India.
The company already has a strong position in the Variable Refrigerant Volume or the commercial AC segment in India.
“India is among the top focus markets for the company globally. If we want to sustain our leadership position globally, we need to focus on having a strong position in emerging markets like India,” said Kanwal Jeet Jawa, MD, Daikin India.
The company has plans to invest about ₹600 crore in the next two-three years, including spends of about ₹100 crore on an R&D centre in Neemrana with around 200 engineers.
“Different regions in the country have different weather conditions. We want to ensure that we offer the best customised products at the appropriate costs to our customers, based on factors such as temperatures, humidity conditions and voltage fluctuations,” said Jawa. He said this R&D centre will also help in designing and developing products for markets such as West Asia, East Africa and Sri Lanka.
The company is already in the process of expanding capacity at Neemrana to about one million units by end of 2017. “Beyond 2017, we will look at setting up a third plant in the country. We are in advanced talks and scouting for the right location. We could look at building this in Southern India, as we want India to be an important manufacturing hub and look at exports,” he added.
Experts believe that the Indian AC market is at an inflection point and expected to grow to about seven million units by 2020 from the current market size of four million units annually.
“We expect the industry to grow by 15-18 per cent this year, after seeing single digit growth in the past two-three years,” he said
Daikin India is aiming to grow at 25-30 per cent this year, on the back of its local manufacturing capabilities, aggressive brand building exercise, besides expansion of its distribution network.
“We are not in a hurry to grow our distribution network but are adopting a structured approach. Currently, our products are available at 4,000 touch points, which we expect to ramp up to 7,000 touch points by 2017,” he said. The company is also planning to double its Daikin-only brand stores from 300 to 600 stores.
Meanwhile, the company has also forayed in the air-purifier market recently and says that it got an encouraging response during the test-marketing phase. “In the next 12-18 months, we will focus on having a full-fledged strategy for the air-purifier segment with an expanded range of products,” Jawa added.