City: kolkataThe kitchen appliance major after foraying into Bhutan, is planning to enter BangladeshBajoria Appliances Pvt Ltd, a leading player in the kitchen appliances space under the 'Kutchina' brand, has drawn up an aggressive plan to tap the fast growing Saarc markets with its range of products. As starter, Kutchina has already forayed into Bhutanese market. The next port of call for Kutchina will be Bangladesh, top company officials said."We have lined up plans to cover the Saarc markets and have started with Bhutan already. However, the import policies in Nepal do make it a little difficult to explore. Bangladesh is our next market as it's a huge market and with our presence in various East based television programmes, our products are equally well known there. It's also another fast growing market in the region," said Namit Bajoria, director, Bajoria Appliances.The company has the entire range of energy efficient products like chimneys, hobs, dishwasher, built in microwave oven, buil-in oven, water purifier, to mention a few. The company has forayed into small appliances with 31 new products across nine categories including cookstops, toasters, sandwich makers, OTG, mixer grinder, juicer, electric kettle, inductions, hand blenders.Quite significantly, appliances are a segregated group considering the appliances we handle. Appliances like chimneys are a Rs 1400 crore industry which is growing at a rate of 22-23 per cent YOY. Built-ins are today a Rs 650-700 crore industry again growing at about the same 22-23 per cent. Water Purifiers itself is a Rs 10000 crore industry which is growing at about 17 per cent and Small Appliances is a Rs 12000 crore industry growing at about 15 per cent. So cumulatively it's a Rs 22000 crore industry growing at about 20 per cent. And therefore, Kutchina would have scope to grow within the country as well, he said.In India, in the Chimneys/Hobs/Built-In categories, the major players are Kutchina, Kaff, Faber, Elica, IFB, Bosch, Nagold (Hafele), Siemens. A large number of new international players like Miele is also getting into the Indian market. In the Water Purifiers category, the main players are Eureka Forbes and Kent with Unilever (Livpure) and LG and many other players also doing well. Small Appliances of course has a world of players like Bajaj, Prestige, Phillips, Morphy Richards (Bajaj), Usha, Havells, Panasonic, Singer etc. There are a number of players in the lower price range, which include Maharaja, Jaipan, Baltra, to mention a few.At present, Kutchina's market share in big home appliances category is nearly 19-20 per cent. "We have recently launched Water Purifiers and Small Appliances and they are also growing at a pretty steady rate with steady market increase. Our aim is to gather at least 5 per cent market share by the next year which is a tough road ahead but definitely possible," he said.Going forward, Kutchina will be very aggressive in its retail expansion. The company, at present, sells its big appliances through 1600 outlets nationally through nearly 125 distributors, while it sells its Small Appliances across 1400 outlets through 55 distributors. Moves are afoot to double these numbers in cases of Big appliances by the next year. And in case of Small Appliances, Kutchina, at present, is operating in the east only. With the positive response it has received, the company now seems ready to roll out nationally in a phased manner and there would be a multifold increase in the number of counters and distributors as small appliances have a more penetrative distribution. The same strategy would apply for Water Purifiers."At present, we have nearly 40 EBOs with most of them being in eastern India mainly in the franchise mode with company-owned number being around four outlets. In the next two years, we wish to take this count to 100. We would now brand these EBOs as Kutchina Kitchen Gallerias across the country. They will be full-fledged stores exhibiting all that we sell as a complete kitchen solution under one roof," said Bajoria.ritwikmukherjee@mydigitalfc.comColumnist: Ritwik MukherjeeKutchina eyes Saarc
