NEW DELHI: Electrical equipment maker Havells India will start selling small home-andkitchen appliances from July, hoping to profit from a Rs 5,200-crore market currently dominated by Philips, Panasonic, Morphy Richards and Bajaj.
Havells' product line-up will include mixers, irons, hand blenders and cooking and brewing appliances.
"The small home appliances segment is all set to boom," said Havells India joint managing director Anil Gupta said, adding that Havells would use its brand recall in the lighting segment to position itself in the home appliance space.
Havells will outsource 70% of manufacturing to local vendors and the rest to its partners in China , where its design centre will be responsible for developing the products.
The company, 30%-owned by QRG Enterprises, plans to invest Rs 70 crore in marketing its small appliances range over the next two to three years. A part of investments will also go into research and development.
Sales of domestic home appliances are growing at 15-18% every year. Premium appliances, which contributes a fifth to the total market, are growing even higher at 30-35%.
Gupta said the products would be priced competitively and will be comparable with those of Philips and Panasonic.
Some other prominent players in the segment include Usha and Maharaja Whiteline.
Havells products will be initially sold in top 40 cities through some 4,000 outlets retailing electrical goods. The products will also be sold through 115 exclusive Havells Galaxy stores, which will be increased to 200 by the end of this financial year.
The company also plans to export its products to Latin America and Thailand using the distribution channel of Sylvania, which it bought in early 2007. This acquisition had catapulted Havells into the top league of lighting equipment makers, behind Philips, Osram and GE.
Havells, which clocked a turnover of. Rs 5,600 crore in the year ended March'11, also sells fans and launched its water heater range in October last year.
