The company, which had last year planned a re-entry into the fridge market in early 2006 with its 'Indicool' brand, has decided against it ''in the immediate future''.
''Voltas, in the immediate future, does not plan to be in the refrigerator business,'' a company spokesman told PTI.
The company had sold the Voltas brand and its refrigerator business to Swedish home appliance maker Electrolux in 2000 under an agreement that it would not sell refrigerators directly in the market for six years.
With the six-year period coming to end, the company had planned a re-entry in early 2006 and also taken initiative for a re-launch through test marketing of its 55 litre fridges branded 'Coldcell' in 11 cities.
However, with the over four million Indian refrigerator market witnessing sustained slump and the AC segment testing roaring success, the company has decided to ''aggressively focus'' on the latter.
''The refrigerator market is not growing and there is over-capacity. Not a single manufacturer is making good money. On the other hand, Voltas has repositioned itself to be a global air conditioning and engineering services company,'' Voltas sources said.
The company, which clocked a turnover of Rs 1,441 crore (Rs 14.41 billion) in 2004-05, has already emerged as the number two brand after LG in the air-conditioner market in India.
The Voltas air conditioner brand has grown by almost 45 per cent in numbers during the first half of 2005-06 as compared to the same period last fiscal.
Besides commanding about 17 per cent share in the domestic market, the company was also looking for aggressively increasing its export volume to Middle-East and other destinations.
Consequently, ''in its current form, the company would not like to be in the white goods market, but will aggressively focus on the air conditioning market including the air conditioner segment, which is growing annually by over 25 per cent,'' the sources said.
Earlier, following the agreement with Electrolux, the company was supplying refrigerators to Samsung, Haier and other multinationals and also supplied refrigerator equipment to original equipment manufacturers from its Hyderabad plant. It had a production capacity of around 5,00,000 refrigerators per annum.
Meanwhile, bouyed by the success of the engineering solutions and air conditioning divisions, the company has posted a 239 per cent jump in net profit in the quarter ended September 30, 2005 at Rs 18.39 crore (Rs 183.9 million) compared to Rs 5.56 crore (Rs 55.6 milllion) in the corresponding period last year.
Net sales in the period were 60 per cent higher to Rs 476.10 crore (Rs 4.76 billion) against Rs 297.33 crore (Rs 2.97 billion) in the corresponding quarter.
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