Appliances, consumer electronics industry to touch Rs 2 lakh cr worth in 5-6 yrs, says CEAMA

The Indian appliances and consumer electronics market is expected to grow more than two-folds in the next five to six years and reach up to Rs 2 lakh crore, helped by the growth of the economy and domestic market, Industry body CEAMA President Eric Braganza has said.

Further, to keep pace with the growing demand, the industry also needs to build a much stronger component base in India, helped by schemes such as Production Linked Incentive Scheme (PLI), to remove the dependence on imports, said Braganza, who has taken over as the new President of the Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association (CEAMA).

The industry needs to become more and more backwards integrated with its manufacturing, strengthen its component base and get price competitiveness, which is going to be the key to driving growth and making India a major manufacturing and export base for the sector, he added.

While talking about the growth, Braganza said he is ''optimistic'' despite the fact the industry was facing a downturn in some segments prior to the pandemic and the two successive lockdowns had disrupted the compressor-based cooling products market in their peak seasons in 2020 and 2021. According to Braganza, an upswing in the economy is expected and factors such as lower penetration levels of appliances and consumer electronics products, increasing replacement opportunities, growing middle-class adding new customers, etc would be a growth driver. ''I am very optimistic because if you look at the market that we are in today in 2021, five to six years down the line, we should be doubling this market. All indications are that our industry will double five to six years down the line,'' Braganza told PTI.

The industry is presently estimated to be around Rs 75,000 crore after facing turbulence in two pandemic waves, which disturbed the market along with component shortage and inflationary pressure on raw material inputs. ''If you take price increase in the next six years, I think we will be close to Rs 2,00,000 crore market. So this is going to be a huge huge industry,'' he added.

Braganza also said that the industry has gone for price increases on account of inflationary pressure on raw material inputs and continuous northward trend in freight costs, which are bound to affect the purchasing power of the customer. ''Also, I feel FY22 is not going to be easy, because when after the pandemic market opens up and people start slowly getting back to their normal lives, we will see major splurge in people spending on all the things that they have not done during the pandemic,'' he said.

There could be ''revenge spending'' by people on foreign travel on holidays, on buying clothes, jewellery, etc.

''And what will happen as a consequence in 2022 this is what I feel, the same amount of money which normally could have been spent on buying appliances and consumer electronics will now get reduced because people will be doing the splurging, I guess it will take about a year for people get to get back to normal,'' he added.

While outlining his priorities as CEAMA President for the next two years, Braganza said his agenda would be to grow the domestic market, grow the component manufacturing base, make products competitive in India, so that industry's dependence on imports will get reduced and save on foreign exchange.

''So I think the crucial thing will be along with growing the domestic market is growing our manufacturing base and reducing our spending and saving on foreign exchange and getting our products competitive in price so that we can export,'' said Braganza, who heads Haier Appliances India.

Established in 1978, CEAMA represents the consumer electronics and home appliances industry and aims to enhance the development of the industry and its components manufacturing.

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