Hitachi Home & Life Solutions (HHLS) aims to capture 10 per cent market share in the room air-conditioner segment this year. The company also plans to expand its washing machine range by the second half of the year.

Gurmeet Singh, vice-president and head (sales & business planning), HHLS, said, “We have about seven per cent market share in the room air-conditioner category. According to our estimates, nearly 32 lakh ACs are sold in India every year. To reach its market share target, Hitachi is launching 13 split and 14 window ACs in the premium and mass-premium segment, respectively.”

The prices of the Hitachi ACs launched on Monday vary from Rs 17,990 to Rs 50,990.

As part of its expansion plans, the company will reach out to about 3,000 dealers across 371 towns this year. The idea is to have a presence in every town that has sales of over 1,000 ACs a year, Singh said.

“We plan to spend about three per cent of our turnover on expansion and marketing. This is 40 per cent more than what we had spent last year,” he said.

For the year ending March 31, 2010, Hitachi reported revenue of Rs 636 crore, with net profit of around Rs 46 crore. For the half-year ending September 30, 2010, it reported Rs 410 crore revenue and Rs 19 crore net profit. Given the growth momentum, Hitachi expects to close this year with at least 22 per cent increase in value terms over 2009-10, Singh said.

Besides ACs, Hitachi also markets chillers, washing machines and refrigerators. The sales of other products are insignificant compared to the overall turnover of the company. During the latter part of this year, Hitachi plans to import washing machines from its manufacturing plant in Thailand.

Hitachi has 18 branches, 172 company-owned sales and service centres and a 1,500-strong dealer network. The Hitachi group has 19 companies in India selling products and services across IT, power, electronics, home appliances and healthcare segments.