Blue Star president & COO , Cooling & Purification Appliances Group, Shashi Arora, and MD B. Thiagarajan at the unveiling of 75 new models in Sri City on Monday
| Photo Credit: N. Anand
Airconditioning major Blue Star Ltd. has commenced operations of its subsidiary at Sri City, Andhra Pradesh, and plans to set up one more unit, said managing director B. Thiagarajan.
“Since January 2023, Blue Star Climatech has started producing room ACs from Sri City facility,” he told mediapersons. “In the first phase, the unit will manufacture 3 lakh room ACs, which will be gradually scaled up to 1.2 million units per annum by FY27,” he told visiting reporters.
For the current fiscal, Blue Star plans to sell 8 lakh room ACs, of which the Himachal facility will account for 6 lakh units and the rest from Sri City. The following year, it plans to sell one million units and capture 15% market share in room ACs by FY25.
Talking about the Sri City facility, he said that the plant would come up in three phases and be completed by FY27. In the first phase, the company had invested ₹350 crore with provision to invest another ₹200 crore.
The company had invested ₹156 crore in plant and machinery through a production-linked incentive scheme and was expecting to get about ₹73 crore by way of PLI benefit.
Mr. Thiagarajan also said that they were planning to set up a new unit for which 40 acres would be procured in Sri City to make commercial ACs and also to cater to export market needs. Currently, Blue Star’s export revenue stands at $100 million and plans are on to more than double it to $250 million in three years.
Regarding the new unit, he said the initial investment could be upwards of ₹250 crore.
To a question about the topline, he said the firm would be ending the year with a revenue of ₹8,000 crore and touch ₹10,000 crore by FY24. “It should have happened two years ago, but for the pandemic,” he said.
To mark the occasion, Mr. Thiagarajan unveiled 75 new models at a starting price of ₹29,900.
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