More speciality packs for retail

NEW DELHI: LG Electronics is expanding its home appliance business to capture more of the Indian kitchen. The company which is already the market leader in mainstream categories such as refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners and microwave ovens is now opening another business frontier for built-in kitchen products and dishwashers. LG last expanded its product portfolio more than two years ago with GSM mobile phones.

LG’s home appliance business in India is pegged at about $500 million of the total $11 billion global appliance revenues. The executive vice-president of the appliances division and a key member of the LG’s top global management team Teddy Hwang said, “We are looking at a two-fold strategy to maintain leadership position in India. This include re-investments in building and supporting new product platforms.”

The plan is to showcase built-in kitchen products like ovens, refrigerators and dishwashers which is embedded in the kitchen architecture as against selling them as separate standalone products today. In the developed markets built-in category is a large part of the appliance business. In the past, LG had introduced dishwashers on a limited scale but this year the plan is to penetrate the market on a larger scale.

The main target for the built-in category would be top end residential apartments. According to Mr Hwang, “Our overall gameplan for India revolves around the mass premium segment.”