Thaindian News

Chennai, Sep 6 (IANS) With the demand for its electric rice cookers and premium mixer-grinders picking up, the city-based Panasonic Home Appliances Company Ltd is doubling its production capacity at an outlay of around $3 million, said a top company official.

“We will be doubling the electric rice cooker and mixer-grinder capacities over the next two years at an outlay of $3 million. We will increase the electric rice cooker capacity to two million units per annum and that of mixer-grinders to 600,000 units,” Hidenori Aso, the managing director, told reporters here Tuesday.

He said the Rs.186 crore turnover company is also studying the possibilities of entering the food processor sector.

According to him, 70 percent of the company’s revenue is brought in by the cookers while the balance is earned by selling mixers.

Aso said the company plans to ship out around 150,000 electric cookers to coutries like South Africa, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Panama, the Madives, Singapore, Nepal, Bhutan, the Middle East, Peru and Nigeria.

Thailand and Malaysia are expected to soon figure in the company’s export map.

“We will also export around 80,000 mixer-grinders,” he added.

In order to further increase its market share by 10 percent to 80 percent in the electric cooker market, Panasonic Home Appliances apart from launching region specific cookers offers five year warranty on the heater and two year warranty on the cooker body.

Speaking about the region specific cookers, G. Gurumohan, the chief marketing officer, said the products are made taking into account the kind of rice and the quality of water that is generally used in that state.

“We have state specific cookers for Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.