By Praveen Paramasivam

CHENNAI (Reuters) – India’s Blue Star is concentrating on a 25% rise in air conditioner gross sales as hotter-than-usual summer time is predicted to drive robust demand throughout the season.

“The indications are … the summer season will be good (for the AC segment),” Blue Star Managing Director B. Thiagarajan advised Reuters on Monday. A brighter financial system can also be anticipated to spice up AC gross sales, he added.

The optimism comes after Blue Star’s AC gross sales got here in under projections final summer time attributable to a cooler-than-expected season, prompting it to name the interval “a disappointing one.”

Blue Star is launching new fashions and ramping up advert spend to raised compete with rivals similar to Tata Group-owned Voltas and Japan’s Daikin Industries in a crowded AC market.

The firm is doubling its spending on adverts to 400 million rupees ($4.8 million), Thiagarajan mentioned, because it jostles for promoting slots on widespread occasions such because the Indian Premier League cricket event within the run-up to the nation’s common elections this yr.

Although inflation is taking a toll on the patron items sector, particularly in rural areas, AC makers are prone to face a smaller affect, since their buyer base is generally prosperous.

Thiagarajan mentioned two-thirds of gross sales come from small cities and cities, whereas first-time consumers buy practically 90% of all its ACs.

Blue Star additionally goals to shut the yr ending March with income of roughly 100 billion rupees, Thiagarajan mentioned. It had reported 79.77 billion rupees final fiscal.

($1 = 82.8880 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Praveen Paramasivam in Chennai; Editing by Eileen Soreng)