Panasonic 'cautiously optimistic'; cuts growth forecast to 20%

Consumer electronic major Panasonic India on Thursday said it has cut its growth forecast to 20 per cent from 25 per cent for the year while stating that it is "cautiously optimistic" about the market. It expects the white goods segment to drive the growth and will be launching new SKUs to its product portfolio.

"Originally we were expecting 25 per cent growth in the year, I may normalise my expectation to about 20 per cent," Panasonic India President and CEO Manish Sharma told PTI here. This year the company expects to clock a revenue of Rs 12,000 crore, with last year's revenue at Rs 10,300 crore.

"We are exercising cautious optimism at this point. The reason we are continuously optimistic is for the fact that we are a low penetration industry and the number of housholds continues to expand. These kinds of situations might be visible in short-term but when you look at mid-term or next two to three years it is very promising," he added.

While television sales have declined, he noted that white goods have grown during the year. Buoyed by a good summer, he said,"On a relatively small base we grew almost double of last year in refrigerator sales. Air conditioners segment grew 38 per cent in April to June. Television industry saw degrowth and we are expecting the growth should be on the track during the festival season." The company has 8.5 per cent market share in the television segment, which it plans to increase to 10 per cent in the next 12 months.

He observed that content consumption has shifted to mobile phones which have impacted TV sales but expects a reversal of the trend in some time. Sharma added that if all TVs and AC are placed in the 18 per cent tax slab under GST, and the energy-efficient appliances in 12 per cent, it would stimulate growth.

He admitted that the flood situation in many states of the country has dampened the sentiment. In B2B, while he noted the consumption across industry, infrastructure, real estate has gone down, but some of the industry-related businesses like welding robots and welding machines, projectors, office automation have done well.

Business to business (B2B) contributes around 22-23 per cent of the company's Rs 10,300 crore revenue which it expects to be 50 per cent in the next five years. Japanese electronics major Panasonic has partnered with Samsonite to launch IoT enabled smart luggage.

The product which features Panasonic's Seekit Bluetooth Tracker was conceptualised, developed in its India innovation centre based out of Bengaluru that was set up in 2017. "This is our first partnership. Lot of customisations has happened for Samsonite. For sure we would explore more partners in the future. Apart from this we are exploring other verticals as well and automotive is our next focus area," he said..