Air Conditioning in India

The dominance of the Korean chaebols over the Indian air conditioning market has ended with the Tata owned Voltas stealing the lead. The marketshare of Voltas has increased dramatically in 2012 according to a GFK Neilsen survey by 5 percentage points to 21%. Note air conditioning is a necessity in India, owing to the hot and humid weather conditions in India. Almost all the electronic and home appliance companies are now manufacturing and marketing ACs.

LG has been one of the biggest losers, as the company’s marketing has become lackluster and it has started to focus on the premium segment. Note LG’s fortunes in the mobile market has also been equally bad. Samsung too has seen its marketshare go down by almost half to 9% in 2012. The combined marketshare of the 2 Korean giants is now 25% down from 40% a year ago.

LG was the company who launched the world’s first internet enabled washing machine, air conditioner, and microwave oven. LG Philips Displays, a joint venture with Philips was also established. The LG ACs come in a wide variety ranging from Window, split, floor standing to cassette, network solution & ducted ACs. In 2008, Samsung had launched its range of bio sleep air conditioners. It also introduced 10 new Split and 5 new Window AC models, with capacities of 0.8T and 1.6T in Split ACs and 1.6T in Window ACs.

Read more about the Air Conditioning Companies in India.

Hindu

According to industry estimates, the AC category has grown by 10 per cent in volume in Q1 of current fiscal. “Major growth drivers have been Voltas and Panasonic,” adds Bakshi.

Japanese brands

Besides the indigenous Indian brand that stood tall, Japanese brands too made hay. While Panasonic claims to have grown 100 per cent during the quarter, Daikin says it grew in excess of 41 per cent.

“We increased our market share by 2 per cent during the quarter in the room air conditioner segment,” says Kanwal Jeet Jawa, Managing Director, Daikin Airconditioning India.