Mumbai: German home appliances maker Bosch and Siemens Household (BSH) is planning to invest euro 100 million in India over the next five years to expand footprint here, a senior company executive said.
"India is an important current and future market for usand we are investing euro 100 million here over the next fiveyears," Stefan Lauwitz Executive Vice President and Head of Product Division Refrigeration told PTI here.
The company is looking at using the funds to step up branding activity, launching a wider range of products and on innovation. Going forward, BSH is looking at country specific innovation to factor in issues like controlling humidity levels and power shortages.
It is also in the process of setting up research facilities here. "We have started research and development facilitieshere, and are zeroing in on the location for R&D facilities," Gunjan Srivastava Managing Director and Chief Executive BSH said.
The company, which has so far focussed on the premium and super-premium segments, is now looking to enter the mass premium segment and improve its outreach.
BSH in early 2016 is looking at launching mass premium range of refrigerators in the Indian market, Lauwitz said. "The strategy is to enter all the segments, for our five categories of home appliance products, in the next 10 years," Srivastava said.
In the super premium, built-in appliances segment, the company is already seeing a 50 per cent growth year-on-year, and is targeting "triple digit growth" going forward, he said.
The brand is present in 200 cities through 1,300 stores from sales and distribution perspective and 250 cities for after-sale services. "Our aim is to double sales and distribution in the next five years. We have 50 brand stores and we are targeting to increase that to 200 stores in the next two to three years,” Srivastava added.
Last year, BSH had set up a manufacturing unit for washing machines in Chennai with a capacity of three lakh units. It will reach full capacity in the next few years, he said adding that the company will consider manufacturing other products here going forward.
