Preethi Kitchen Appliances Pvt. Ltd., a 100% subsidiary of Royal Philips, has opened a new facility at Thaiyur near here to manufacture 1.20 million mixer-grinders per annum.
Philips acquired Chennai-based Preethi Kitchen Appliances during 2011. “Till recently, we were producing about 80,000 to 90,000 mixer-grinders per annum,” said Srinivasan Subramanian, managing director, Preethi Kitchen Appliances. “With the help of the new facility, it will go up to 1.20 million units per annum soon.”
The new unit, which is spread over 70,000 sq.ft., would house a manufacturing and assembling unit for mixer-grinders along with a product validation lab. It involved an investment of ₹40 crore to ₹50 crore. The facility had flexibility to increase the production capacity to two million units per annum, he said.
Currently, the firm has two plants – one for making motors and another for assembling – at a nearby site. Production at these plants had been scaled down and it would be merged with the new plant in the coming days, said a company official. “For 10 years now, we are a leader in the mixer-grinder segment with 20% market share. The market is growing by 9%-10% per annum, whereas we are growing faster than that. We will like to maintain the same growth in the coming years,” Mr. Subramanian said.
For the year ended March 2018, the firm reported net profit of ₹209.8 crore against a loss of ₹6.4 crore.