Kenstar aims 30 pc rise in sales this fiscal

Small appliances brand Kenstar is looking at 30 per cent sales growth this fiscal on account of portfolio expansion, entry into newer geographies and advantages from the Goods and Services Tax (GST) rollout.
Post GST implementation, the company is expecting the sale of branded air coolers to rise as the new indirect tax regime will remove the huge price differential advantage the unorganised market was enjoying.
"We expect sales growth of 30 per cent in the current fiscal on account of beefing up of our products range, introduction of GST and entry into newer geographies," Kenstar COO Rajiv Kenue told PTI.

The company, without disclosing its financial details, said 60-65 per cent of its sales comes from air coolers. It reported a sales growth of 22 per cent in the previous fiscal.
"With introduction of GST, we expect share of unorganised market in sale of air coolers to fall drastically as they will no longer have huge price differential advantage compared with branded players," he added.
At present, 70 per cent of air coolers market is dominated by unorganised players. Kenue said with GST, price difference in products of unorganised and organised players will be just 10 cent as against 30 per cent earlier.

"We are aiming to be number 1 player in the air cooler segment by fiscal 2020 across India," he said.

The company is also focusing on increasing exports out of India to newer geographies in Africa, South East Asia and Latin America.
"At present, exports account for 5-10 per cent of our sales but we are looking at increasing it to 15 per cent by end of next fiscal as we enter into new markets," Kenue said.
Elaborating on new products launches, he said: "This year we are looking at expanding our range of induction cooking, launch slow juicers, rice cookers and wine chillers."

Next fiscal, Kenstar plans to launch air purifier and industrial air cooling solutions. It is also exploring getting into water purifiers segment.