India’s oldest air-conditioner maker, the Tata group company Voltas Ltd, is taking its air-conditioner (A-C) business overseas.

The company will launch Voltas brand of A-Cs in the Middle East, the Saarc countries and in parts of Africa as part of its expansion drive, after five decades of local existence.

The strategy on international thrust follows the strong reversal in the company’s fortunes in India.

Voltas has only recently seen itself move up the market share sweepstakes to No. 2 from the No. 5 position, and only lags behind Korean chaebol LG Electronics.

S N Tripathi, executive director and chief operating officer (Unitary products) of Voltas, said, "The export thrust will include a range of cooling products — room air conditioners, split air conditioners, water coolers, visi-coolers and chest coolers."

"These products will be marketed and sold by local distributors and dealers through a wide network of retailers, under the Voltas brand as well as OEMs for other established local brands," Tripathi added.

The company’s products will be competitively priced as against competition, he added.

Currently exports (mainly the international projects) contributes around 25 per cent to Voltas turnover. The cooling appliances business is expected to contribute 10 per cent of total exports.

The export initiative is the spearhead of an effort to capitalise on the growing acceptance of quality Indian products overseas. The new initiative (exports) is looked after by R S S N Raju, who was earlier looking after the domestic operations.

In the domestic market, Voltas has crawled back as the second largest brand in the room air-conditioners with its Vertis,Vectra and Verdant brand.

In the mid-1990s, it had lost its leadership position to the likes of LG and US major Carrier.

Voltas has recently hived off its manufacturing facility at Dadra into a 50:50 joint venture (Universal Comfort Products) with Fedders Corporation of the US.

Its manufacturing facility for refrigerators is located at Hyderabad and its customers include Pepsi, Samsung, Cadbury India, Hindustan Lever, Nestle to name a few.