Midea to introduce Toshiba brand home appliances in India

Chinese electrical appliance maker Midea Group will introduce Toshiba brand home appliances in Indian market, and is setting up a plant to produce them locally, a top company official said.

Midea, which owns around 80 per cent stake in Toshiba Lifestyle Products and Services Corporation (TLSC), will manufacture Toshiba-range of home appliance at its Ahmednagar, Maharashtra plant, where it is investing Rs 1,350 crore over the next five years.

Midea Technology Park will have three manufacturing units for home appliances, HVAC products and compressors, and will also include a manufacturing facility for Carrier Midea India, a 60:40 joint venture between Midea and Carrier.

"The factory would go live in 1.5 years but the interesting fact is, there is one of the factories in the complex, that will make Toshiba brand products, which we intend to launch in India in due course.

"The Toshiba factory would make home appliances such as washing machine, refrigerators, water purifier, water heater etc. This would in a phased manner and we would be launching more products in india ... bulk of the volume would be manufactured here at this factory, which would go live in April 2020," Carrier Midea India and Midea Group, India Region Managing Director Krishan Sachdev told PTI.

It is planning to introduce Toshiba range of air purifier by diwali time frame this year.

On being asked whether Carrier Midea would use its existing sales network and channels for Toshiba here, he said: "We Would be creating our own independent business unit for Toshiba brand products".

It will leverage some of the existing business relationships to expand business network.

"We would send developed, totally new platform for the Indian markets for Toshiba branded products for all categories," Midea Group Vice President Eric Wang said.

In March 2016, Toshiba Corporation had announced to transfer 80.1 per cent stake in TLSC, the home appliance arm of Toshiba, at a price of approximately USD 473 million.

"Presently, the company would have brand Carrier in the room Airconditioners, Midea full range from room Airconditioners to commercial Aircondition, home appliances amd Toshiba brand of appliances," Sachdev added.

In India, Carrier Midea is a joint venture between UTC Climate Control & Security (UTC CC&S) and Midea Group, and has rights to manufacture and sell Carrier and Midea brand air conditioners, Midea brand home appliances and Midea brand Commercial Air Conditioners in India.

The company declined to share the financial details for its India businesses.

"Over the last five years, we have significantly grown ahead of the market with a CAGR of about 25 per cent from last five years. Our outlook for the next three years is to increase more than 25 per cent because we are going to introduce some significant large appliances categories in addition to others small appliances category," he added.