After dominating the refrigerator market around the world, Liebherr, the German refrigerator expert, is all set to enter India and has targeted the West Indian market to drive growth.
The company, which has plans of opening a manufacturing unit in Aurangabad is currently aiming more than 35 percent of it’s sales from West markets and plans to grow significantly in the coming years. Aspiring to tap the refrigerator market in India, the German refrigerator expert, Liebherr announced its business expansion targeting 40 city dealer network expansion in the region in cities like Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Aurangabad, Ahmedabad, Surat, Rajkot, Vadodara in West India.
The company has planned to partner with major dealers and retail chains in cities in West India and will be locally manufacturing a mass premium range of refrigerators from its plant in Maharashtra’s Aurangabad district where it has already invested around Rs 500 crore to set up operations.
Liebherr anticipates maximum demand coming from metro areas as well as from Tier-I/II cities owing to their developmental infrastructure such as metros and other connectivity. Targeting the mass premium segment, Liebherr Appliances India aims to produce high-quality refrigeration appliances tailored to suit the Indian market, the plant will have initial capacity of manufacturing over 500,000 cooling appliances per year starting 2018.
Liebherr group which achieved a consolidated group turnover of 9.2 billion Euros in the year 2016 , plans to produce new line up of refrigerator products in coming months of 2018. It will introduce 19 different models in various colors and feature combinations in refrigerators to cater Indian consumers. In 2019, it will add around 22 models and another 11 technologically advanced models will be introduced additionally in the next 3 years to widen its range in phased manner. Liebherr has been in India since 2008 as a part of the domestic refrigerator and freezer market with presence of built-in refrigerators & freezers, side by appliances with different cooling zones, special wine cabinets, under counter fridges and freezers with a huge HNI clientele.
Commenting on the expansion plan, Radhakrishna Somayaji, Chief Sales Officer, Liebherr Appliances India Private Limited said, “We are pleased to announce our expansion in West India and our aim to sell the upcoming range of refrigerators in urban and semi – urban parts of the country. We believe, as a market, West India encompasses a huge potential for us and with price capping in almost all the states of West, we are looking at capturing the good market. To support the availability of our product and services close to the customers, we are rapidly expanding network through new dealerships, branches and authorized service centres. We have set an objective of entering & growing the business by expanding our refrigerator range. We have now specific plans at some of our plants. We would make sure that we would utilize them to the maximum and invest going forward. This would be for the base capacity and also focusing on new product launches. We aim to continue to leverage our strong brand, differentiated products , great quality, competitive pricing and global networks to continue to increase sales.”
