Scorching heat pushed up AC sales in the last 3 months: Voltas

the air conditioner business has been good since March due to scorching heat and soaring temperatures this summer, said Pradeep Bakshi, Executive Vice President & COO, Voltas. All appliances have done very well in the last few months, he told CNBC-TV18, adding, FY17 has seen a good start in terms of AC sales, in particular. WhiIe the AC industry has been growing at the rate of 20-25 percent, Voltas has not been able to supply as per the demand, he added.The company has not cut or hiked prices and is offering extended services along with financial easing to aid customers buy its products using Equated Monthly Installment (EMIs), Bakshi added. Below is the verbatim transcript of Pradeep Bakshi\\'s interview with Latha Venkatesh & Sonia Shenoy on CNBC-TV18.Latha: Your Q4 air conditioner sales were not hugely impressive but if you can give us some colour about what your experience was and whether this Q1 will show much better sales?A: The business has been pretty good March onwards because summer has been severe this time, so we not only have been able to garner the business for us but also provided comfort to our customers in the last two-three months in a big way.However, talking about the last quarter of the last fiscal which has gone by, barring one-one-and-a-half month, it wasn\\'t very great; in fact last entire year was not very good for business, right from April-May-June of last year but this year it has take off very well, summer has been extended one, it started on time, the temperature was soaring from mid of February and till now there is no respite, in fact it\\'s been raining in certain parts of the country which is bringing down the momentum of the industry but the entire industry has gained from this particular season and business has been booming this year. Sonia: Since business is booming expectedly, what is the growth looking like for FY17. If I am not wrong, in FY16 you sold 70,000 units of air coolers. What do you think you can do in FY17?A: Largely all the appliances have done very well in last few months. However, as I said in the beginning, our business is to provide comfort to our consumers and so we have also added air cooler category in the last year. To begin with, we have done reasonably well. Whatever we had targeted we have been able to achieve and this year again we are gunning for big number both for air conditioners as well as air cooler category. So we are hoping that the business should be good this year because the year has started with a good note.Sonia: What kind of margins do you think you can do in the unitary cooling segment as a whole? In FY16 you did about 16 percent margins. What is the expectation for FY17?A: It is too early to comment about the entire year\\'s margin but we have been maintaining our margins for the last couple of years, we have been making 10 plus. However, as I said this entire industry has done well, so we are ahead of the industry. We will continue to maintain that lead in terms of market share, in terms of numbers, in terms of profitability, but it\\'s difficult to comment about yearend results. Latha: Can you give us all those numbers. What is the industry growth, what is your own growth and what is your market share?A: So far our industry has been growing by 25-30 percent as per best market industry estimate, but we have grown double than that, in fact double to triple in that in the month of April. May is still continuing, but as of now the results have been good, we have been growing continuously, our business has been good. However, struggling supply chain is a big bottleneck at the moment and we are not able to provide as per the requirement, so that\\'s how the business has been looking like. Sonia: Because demand is improving so much, generally you tend to see competition give a lot of incentives, discounts and price cuts at a time like this. Have you been taking any price cuts and if yes, how much and will that also put pressure on your margins going ahead?A: We have not looked at any price cut so far because demand versus supply is a big deal at the moment. We are trying our best to be able to meet up the requirement, so there is no question of either reducing the prices or increasing the prices. However, we are not looking at it. Our single focus approach is to benefit the consumer in terms of being able to provide comfort at a reasonable price - that's what we have done and we have been able to maintain that and we will continue to do that. Hence, we have come up with extended service warranty and we also provide easy finance offer to the customers. This makes their buying easy.