Whirlpool India sees contribution of exports from here to grow in the future as it aims at a double-digit profitable growth.

The business growth in India will be fuelled by strengthening existing product portfolio as well as expansion in newer categories such as built-in appliances, air-conditioners and water purifiers, said Whirlpool of India Managing Director Sunil D’Souza.

Speaking to BusinessLine, D’Souza said that he also hopes to better numbers from e-commerce channel. Excerpts:

What strategies are you adopting to take Whirlpool to the next level?

We are looking at double-digit profitable growth while continuing to focus on expanding our product portfolio, and footprints in terms of numeric reach and in-store execution as well as driving manufacturing efficiencies. We have got ample opportunities to grow within our existing portfolio. We are looking to expand our portfolio at both ends of the spectrum – the mass end to get scale as well as on the premium end to drive profitability.

While we will expand our existing portfolio, we will also look at expanding into adjacencies where we have competitive advantages or where we can build competitive advantages and drive profitability.

So, while refrigerators and washing machines remain our biggest businesses, we are now looking to ramp up our footprint and portfolio in the built-in appliances segment with Kitchenaid. At the same time, we are enhancing our focus in the water purification and air-conditioner segments.

The AC market is highly fragmented and has seen challenges in the recent times. Do you have aggressive plans for this segment this summer?

We have aggressive plans for AC segment. The Indian consumer is looking for value and we are trying to provide innovation and differentiation with our new range this year.

We are offering top of the industry standards technology which offers effective air purification as well as air cooling solutions. With a clearly differentiated product, we believe that we have enough headroom to grow in the AC category. We have a good footprint to reach out to consumers, good teams for execution and have a strong brand that Indian consumer recognises for quality.

The last two-three years have been challenging for the consumer durables industry especially with the rural slowdown. Are there concerns?

Last year, we definitely had multiple reasons that impacted the overall growth of the industry such as unseasonal rains in the North, besides early and deficient monsoons.

So, for the past 12 months, there has been a lot of stress in the rural economy. But, looking at some of the forecasts, if we have a normal monsoon, then it will take off a lot of stress in the short term.

At the same time, the government’s focus in this budget has been on building rural infrastructure as well to grow rural incomes.

The urban demand has been doing relatively well. We hope to see a positive effect of the increased focus of the government on manufacturing and entrepreneurship.

Policies such as the pay commission for government employees and armed forces should also increase spending powers. We are hoping all this will fall in place and discretionary incomes will grow.

How are you looking to tackle the e-commerce channel especially when consumer durable companies have been miffed with discounts and pricing?

E-commerce becoming big in India is a reality. The critical piece is to have the right partners, the right portfolio, the right structures, and the right strategies to grow the e-commerce. We will partner for growth. It is work in progress, we are seeing good numbers but we can still do better.

Do you believe India can become an important manufacturing hub for exports for Whirlpool?

Right now, we are doing some exports out of our Indian factories to markets such as South-East Asia, South Asia and West Asia. We can do more and we are looking at ramping it up. Today, it’s not significant but we do see it to become a fairly decent size business in the future.

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