Kolkata’s Bidisha Nandi was waiting for the e-commerce deliveries to resume so that she could buy a dishwasher. But by the time online deliveries were allowed from mid-May, the product she had chosen was sold out.
“The price point was Rs 43,000 and I wanted to make the investment because remote working meant double the dishes and I have arthritis which makes it tough for me to stand for long. I finally bought a dishwasher from a showroom that gave home delivery,” she added.
Amidst the coronavirus outbreak, Indians are working from home, cooking more and ordering less. This has led to the rise in demand for the dishwasher category.
Large brands like Voltas Beko, LG and BSH Home Appliances (Bosch, Siemens and Gaggenau) are seeing a surge in demand for products compared to last year.
Vijay Babu, VP-Home Appliances at LG Electronics India told Moneycontrol that for working professionals, the lockdown has led to products like washing machine and dishwasher becoming essential to balance household chores along with professional duties.
“We have seen a huge jump in dishwasher sales, 400-500 percent up from last year. In future also we will see an increase in the consumption of products such as vacuum cleaners and dishwashers as people have started using these products,” he added.
Dishwashers are merely estimated to be a Rs 200 crore industry in India. The global dishwasher market is estimated to be $ 7 billion (Rs 52,400 crore approximately).
While dishwasher brands had been involved in creating awareness about the product category, only the lockdown proved to be successful.
“There has been a myth that dishwashers consume a lot of water and are not effective for Indian utensils. This is probably the reason why only about 60,000 dishwashers are sold each year in India while about 6 million units of water-guzzler washing machines are being sold each year. The industry wasn’t able to convince customers but the lockdown has been successful in doing that,” said the director of appliance category at a mid-sized white goods firm.
When it comes to white goods (excluding televisions), refrigerators, air conditioners and washing machines are the top three categories. Of these, the air conditioner industry is estimated to be Rs 22,000 crore, ACs to be around Rs 20,000 crore and washing machines at Rs 9,000 crore.
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Neeraj Bahl, MD and CEO, BSH Home Appliances, said that there was a surge in the demand for dishwashers and that they are receiving a lot of enquiries and booking for dishwashers.
“We have seen 20 percent growth (year-to-date) compared to 2019 of approximately 60 days of not operating. Additionally, we have grown ~2X over this month last year,” he added. The company did not share exact sales numbers.
There were also complaints from customers on social media that the e-commerce portals suddenly had seen a depletion of stock in dishwashers. The head of consumer durables at an electrical goods firm said that this was probably the first time in India that dishwashers were sold out.
However, from July 2020 there is some normalcy that is returning as far as the stock is concerned. Industry sources said that large brands are being able to sell almost 3,000 units in a month in metro cities since the lockdown. This is double that of Diwali sales.
“We had stock for over three months before the pandemic hit us. This surge was unexpected but from this month onwards we will have enough stock up till the festive season,” he added.
To meet customer needs, BSH Home Appliances is launching a new line of dishwashers in H1FY21.
Voltas Beko, the joint venture appliance brand of consumer durables firm Voltas and Turkey's Arçelik, is expanding its dishwasher range by adding five new models in the next two months.
Voltas spokesperson told Moneycontrol that even though dishwasher is a relatively new segment, sales increased 400 percent since March 2020. The spokesperson added that this category is gaining popularity, especially in urban markets.
According to industry sources, if the current demand continues till the end of FY21, almost 100,000 dishwashers would be sold in a year seeing an almost 100 percent growth over the previous year.
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