Home > Business > PTI > Report
Samsung commissions refrigerator plant
September 03, 2003 15:13 IST
South Korea's Samsung Electronics on Wednesday announced commissioning of its refrigerator manufacturing plant in India and said it will achieve a 13 per cent market share by selling 400,000 refrigerators this year.
Set up with an investment of $25 million, the plant located at Nodia, near New Delhi, is Samsung's fifth refrigerator manufacturing facility in the world, the other four facilities being located at Korea, China, Thailand and Mexico, R Zutshi, director-sales, Samsung India, told a news conference in New Delhi.
"The domestic production of refrigerators in India will enable us to strengthen our product offering for the Indian consumer as well as give us the flexibility to respond faster to the changing needs of consumers," he said.
The firm, which already produces televisions, washing machines, microwave and air conditioners at the Noida factory, is targetting to up its share in the $3.2 billion refrigerator business in India to 13 per cent this year from 7.5 per cent last year.
Samsung has already sold about 210,000 refrigerators during January-August this year, he said, adding frost-free refrigerator market was growing by 38 per cent while the direct cool category was notching 4.1 per cent growth annually.
"We are targetting a revenue of Rs 2,800 crore (Rs 28 billion) this year from selling consumer durables in India. Already Rs 1,480 crore (Rs 14.80 billion) sales has happened in January-August, up 56 per cent over last year," Zutshi said.