We have delivered 11-12% growth while the market has grown 6-8%: Mathew Job, CG Consumer Electricals

Talking to ET Now, Mathew Job, CEO, Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals, says the company is using consumer insight to launch successful products.

Edited excerpts:

We understand that the strategy for differentiated products in air coolers and water heaters will be implemented in the near term. What is the strategy and what is the outlook for differentiated products?

Crompton has always been strong on technology and engineering. One of the things we have tried to do in the last couple of years is to bring the consumer at the heart of the innovation journey. Basically, we are trying to understand the consumer pain points in all the categories that we are playing in and then use technology and engineering strength to design and deliver the propositions.


Eighteen months ago we launched the anti-dust fans which was based on consumer insight. Consumers said it was difficult to keep fans clean. Over the last 18 months, we have significantly grown the market share of the fans on the back of the performance of anti-dust fans.

Today we launched Tricool India’s first real window cooler. Again, it is based on consumer insight.

We understand that the company is open to acquisitions. Have you initiated talks with any company so far?

Our take is in terms of existing categories or in new categories. We want to play in those categories and ensure that in every category we play in, we have a reasonable market position within the top 3 players.

The company has got a sales growth of about 28% year-on-year in the third quarter, What is the outlook of premium fans in the overall revenue in the segment?

Two years back, roughly 7% of our revenue in fans used to come from premium fans and we had set a target to take that number up to 15%. We have managed to bring that number up to almost 20%. And most of it, of course, has been on the back of the anti-dust fans.
The premium contribution can continue to improve and continue to drive our market share growth in the time to come.

Your lighting segment has clocked a very strong growth, largely led by LEDs. Will LED continue to drive the lighting segment sales and will you continue to hold your market share there?

Two years back we said the company will shift its entire focus solely on LED lighting and the switch to LED for the industry itself has been quite dramatic. That trend is likely to continue with LED technology offering all the benefits you can dream about. This trend will continue.

After seeing slow growth in domestic pumps due to significant competition from mid and low tier players do you see launching mini crest pumps and reducing prices, will work?

It is still early days for me to comment on anything. The real results will only be seen six months from now.

With all the growth drivers in place, analysts are working with a compounded annual growth rate of 14% over the course of the next two years, is that a fair number to go by with?
I do not want to give any forward looking guidance. I can only tell what we have consistently maintained in the past; our objective is three fold; to grow our revenues faster than the market, to grow our profits at least in line with sales and to convert 100% of our profits to cash.

With the exception of demonetisation and GST quarter, our best estimate is that the market has been growing 6-8% per annum. During the same time, we have delivered 11-12% growth. We have always managed to deliver a growth that is significantly faster than the market. I do not want to give any guidance for the period forward.