Faber India, the domestic arm of Italian kitchen appliances firm Faber SpA, said on Friday it has entered into a distribution tie-up with Whirlpool and is aiming for 30 per cent growth in sales turnover at Rs 52 crore (Rs 520 million) this year.
The company is also in the process of setting up another plant in Pune with an investment of Rs 12-15 crore (Rs 120-150 million) and the facility would be operational by 2007, its managing director Pralhad Bhutada told PTI.
"We have entered into the agreement with Whirlpool and we aim to surpass the industry growth of 20 to 25 per cent, achieving Rs 52 crore topline for the 12-month period ending December 2004," he said.
The Rs 200 crore (Rs 2 billion) Indian 'lifestyle' kitchen market was in a nascent stage but was poised to grow as duties were coming down, he said.
At present, the existing Pune plant of the company has a combined production capacity of 15,000 units a day. "We need to augment capacity and set up a new plant as the chimney industry alone would turn into a million units market by 2010.
We have been continuously investing in our existing plant to cater to the growing domestic market where we are the only organised player," Bhutada said.
Glen, Faber's nearest competitor in the domestic market, imports its products, he said. "We get the benefit of economies of scale but the going gets tough for importers due to high duties," he said.
