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Our Aim Is To Grow Our Appliances Business 3 Times By 2025: Saurabh Baishakhia

The need of the hour is for the government to intervene and put in place some policies in this year’s Union Budget, that will facilitate rationalisation of the costs of raw materials, fuel, and help smoothen the supply chain, said Baishakhia.

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Our objective is to offer our customers a wide range of feature-rich products which allow for ease and convenience, across price points that work best for them, said Saurabh Baishakhia, President, Appliances, Usha International in an exclusive conversation with BW Applause and BW Everything Experiential. Edited excerpts: 

What are the budget expectations for the appliances sector?  
 
Our expectation from this year’s Union Budget is that it should focus on generating demand, driving consumption and sustaining the critical initiatives. During the past year, we have witnessed and borne the impact of an abnormal surge in the price of raw materials, which has cast a shadow on revenue forecasts and continues to pose a grave challenge for brands across sectors.  
 
The need of the hour is for the government to intervene and put in place some policies in this year’s Union Budget, that will facilitate rationalisation of the costs of raw materials, fuel, and help smoothen the supply chain.  

What is the outlook for the appliances industry in 2022?  
 
Despite COVID-19 overshadowing the last 15-18 months, the demand for home and kitchen appliances has continued to be strong. We have witnessed a growing demand across most categories of kitchen appliances that ease WFH situations.
 
In 2022, along with the launch of new products, we will be working towards expanding our retail footprint across geographies in India. Our aim is to grow our appliances business 3x by 2025, by offering appliances that offer best-in-class features at a great value proposition. 

How is Usha expanding their appliances category? 
 
In the past year, Usha has launched multiple new products in the home and kitchen appliances category. Some of them were consumer insight based product innovations like Trienergy Mixer Grinder, Calypso OTG, Easy View Rice Cooker and India’s first wet grinder range with a ten-year warranty and some more models in kitchen and fabric-care. This year, we further plan to launch some new products in our range to improve our total addressable market.
 
Our objective is to offer our customers a wide range of feature-rich products which allow for ease and convenience, across price points that work best for them. To allow purchases to be more affordable, we also regularly roll out easy financing options and products across more price points to make sure customers fulfil their aspirations of acquiring and owning an appliance they want.   
 
Our overall strategies are aimed at reaching customers at all touchpoints of their purchase journey and offering them a seamless purchase experience - both offline as well as online. The new-age customer is more value-conscious, rather than price-conscious. Keeping our ear to the ground, we continuously track consumer preferences and inclinations. Using this intel, we will continue to drive unique product offerings.    

How is Usha's appliances category growing in the rural part of India along with the urban space? 
 
Rural contributes 18-19 per cent to Usha’s overall sales. Given the humongous size and the diversity of India's rural population, it is safe to say that the value of goods and services consumed is greater in rural India. Our growth in rural areas is twice the growth in urban areas and we anticipate rural to be the big growth driver for India in the coming years as well.    



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