Panasonic India has introduced its green initiative named “Eco Ideas” on Thursday. The company’s all future efforts, including setting up manufacturing facilities, launching new products and marketing campaigns will revolve around this concept, Panasonic officials said.
The concept launched in India will soon be extended to other south Asian markets including Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore.
“By 2012 about 80 per cent of Panasonic’s total sales will be come eco products,” said Daizo Ito, chief executive officer of the company’s India operations. “We will effect about 2.4-lakh-tonne reduction in carbon-dioxide emission in three years,” he added.
As part of its efforts to improve energy efficiency of consumer goods, the company has introduced an inverter technology in refrigerators. The technology helps to save about 20-40 per cent power and is more energy efficient than any five-star rated product in the Indian market, said Arjun Balakrishnan, director of operations and planning, Panasonic India.
The company will launch air conditioners with the new inverter technology from December in the country, he added.
Panasonic will be investing close to $300 million (about Rs 1,400 crore) over the next three years in India to set up manufacturing facilities, flagship showrooms (catalogue stores) and for marketing. The greenfield factories will manufacture plasma television sets, refrigerators and washing machines.
Panasonic already has production units in Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon, Vadodara and Chennai. The company manufacturers products including batteries, rice cookers, colour TVs and carbon rods.
The company will set up catalogue stores, which would be nearly 20,000 sq ft each, across five cities in one year.
The first showroom will be inaugurated in Gurgaon in December. The other cities include Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and Kolkata, Balakrishnan said. Panasonic already has about 100 brand shops and plans to double the number in one year, he added.
The company reported Rs 2,200 crore in revenue last year and targets
Rs 3,000 crore this financial year. The growth is expected to be boosted by the festival season for which Panasonic has announced assured gifts for all high-end products.
Source: Financial Chronicle
