The AC divsion of Voltas Ltd is eyeing countries such as South Africa, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in 2005. For the purpose, the company is planning to aggressively increase its export capacities from 20,000 to two lakh ACs in 2005 and to 3.5 lakh ACs between 2005-06. At present, the company exports Voltas ACs to Middle East, Doha, Qatar, Dubai and Muscat, said Voltas Ltd vice-president (operations) cooling and appliances division KJ Jawa.

According to Mr Jawa: "Over the years, Voltas has been focusing on effective brand-building and consumer strategy. This has contributed towards growing the bottomline of the company. As for the domestic market, Voltas split ACs priced at Rs 15,000 have taken off well this Diwali and have contributed significant numbers to our overall sales turnover." Voltas Ltd has achieved a 40% sales growth within the first six months of 2004. And, the company is quite bullish about it.

"We have expanded our product range. We are planning a national roll-out of technology-driven telephone controlled ACs soon. Prior to the move, we conducted test-marketing of the new product in Delhi," he explained. As part of its distribution strategy, Voltas is planning to beef up retailers from 1,400 to 1,800. "We are also planning to expand our exclusive sales and service dealers from 380 to 450 by December 31, 2004.

Our new CRM package called 'MySAP', for which we have invested Rs 2.5 crore, will benefit Voltas by way of strengthening infrastructure and maintaining database," he added. According to Mr Jawa, with the new initiatives, the AC division of Voltas Ltd hopes to contribute an additional 30% sales growth to the overall sales turnover of Voltas Ltd within a year.