In a significant move, LG India has decided to shift the entire line of split air-conditioners to inverter air-conditioners from this year. The company has stopped manufacturing regular split ACs also known as fixed speed ACs, which currently contribute to the the bulk of the AC sales in the country.

The company is also eyeing a 30 per cent sales growth this year in this segment.

With this move, it has started manufacturing its dual inverter air-conditioner series, which it unveiled on Tuesday, at its manufacturing plants at Greater Noida and Pune.

Vijay Babu, Business Head-RAC, LG Electronics India, said that LG was the first brand to move completely to inverter split-AC manufacturing in the country and the company has been working on this strategy since late last year.

Priced in the range of ₹36,000- ₹54,000, the company has launched 45 models under the new Dual Inverter AC series.

LG Electronics India believes competitive pricing will help make this strategy work. “Earlier price gap between a regular and an inverter AC was as high as 25-30 per cent. We have been leveraging on economies of scale and local production to bring down this price gap significantly,” he added.

The company sold about 7.5 lakh units of ACs in 2016 and this year it is aiming to sell about 9 lakh units. “We believe the overall pie of inverter ACs will expand exponentially this year. We have a market share of about 22 per cent and we aim to increase it to 28 per cent in 2017,” he added.

In India, inverter ACs are estimated to contribute just about 10-12 per cent to the overall AC market. However, with BEE’s new rating system called the Indian Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio becoming mandatory from January next year, inverter ACs are expected to get a big boost. This summer season too, companies are expected to push inverter ACs. Globally, inverters ACs contribute about 65 per cent to the overall AC sales.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW