Synopsis
Sales of air-conditioners grew by 25%, refrigerators by 15%, microwave ovens by 39% and washing machines by 24% by the number of units sold in both retail stores and online since India unlocked in the second half of last calendar year boosted by record Diwali sales.
Agencies
Godrej Appliances business head Kamal Nandi said consumers are spending on essentials since the pandemic and appliances have become an essential product for them rather than discretionary.
Consumer electronics industry logged in decade high sales between July-December in home appliances and one of the highest ever in the Diwali quarter, reveals just released data from market researcher GfK India which is the only agency that tracks actual sales.
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman increased spending on rural infrastructure development by 34% to ₹40,000 crore and doubled micro-irrigation corpus to ₹10,000 crore among other measures that could help create jobs and boost farm incomes in the hinterland .
Updated Feb 02, 2021 | 19:23 IST
The FM in the Budget announced a 2.5% hike in custom duty for parts of smartphones and compressors for refrigerators and air conditioners. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman (File photo)
Key Highlights
Home appliances manufacturers are currently already passing on price hikes in the range of 8 to 14 per cent due to input cost pressures
Industry voices believe the budget annoucement will not have a sizeable impact on prices or demand for these products
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced in this year s Union Budget that the custom duty on compressors of refrigerators and air conditioners will be hiked from the current 12.5 per cent to 15 per cent. On the electronics side too, the FM made a push for domestic manufacturing.
Express News Service
NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has proposed an increase in customs duty on items that included mobile phone parts and compressors.
Industry body Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association (CEAMA) President Kamal Nandi said, “The customs duty revision for the compressors, used in refrigeration and air conditioning, from 12.5% to 15% will promote indigenous manufacturing. There have been increases in import duties on motors and PCBs as well.”
He, however, added, “these are good for the medium and long term but will impact price adversely in short term due to insufficient output capacities.”
All compressors used in domestic manufacturing of ACs and refrigerators are imported from overseas. Hence a customs duty hike may impact prices of finished goods.
Prices of refrigerator and AC likely to go up due to customs duty increase on compressor
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Prices of refrigerator and AC likely to go up due to customs duty increase on compressorBy
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Synopsis
At present, the domestic production capacity of these components is only 40% of the total requirements for refrigerators and 20% for air-conditioners. Manufacturers of AC and refrigerators said prices would go up by Rs 100 to Rs 500 at most.
iStock
KOLKATA: Prices of refrigerator and air-conditioner are likely to go up marginally by around 1% due to a small increase in basic customs duty on their key component – compressor – by 2.5% and electric motors from 10% to 15%.