The festive season is around the corner and we aim to look at what this means in terms of demand for electrical appliances. It is suggested that demand is better than expected and that dealers are optimistic about the Dussehra to Diwali period. To get a ground check, CNBC-TV18 spoke to Nilesh Gupta, managing partner at Vijay Sales, and Kamal Nandi, executive VP, sales and marketing, Godrej Appliances.

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On the demand and supply situation, Gupta said, “I think the biggest fear we had a month back was regarding the third Covid wave. Most probably, because of the vaccinations, I think we are not going to see the third wave. The consumer mood is very upbeat, we expect this time to be one of the best festive seasons.”

“The only issue which is worrying all of us is not on the demand side, but on the supply side; because supply shortages are there and all the manufacturers have also indicated that the situation will not improve during Diwali. So, I think this year, the challenge for festival season is not going to be on the demand side but on the supply side. So, all the brand manufacturers and the retailers who are able to get the stock, I think they will have an excellent Diwali this year,” he explained.

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Meanwhile, Nandi said, “We are expecting a good festive season. I think there is a lot of positivity, given that we are not seeing any spike in Covid cases, definitely the vaccination drive which is now more or less a crore per day is building a lot of positivity among consumers and the buying sentiment is growing as well. We will definitely see growth. Remember last year, the festive season was very good. We did see about 30 percent growth last year on a year-on-year (YoY) basis and we are expecting growth over that and roughly, the expectation is about 20 percent plus growth in the festive months of October and November.”

On demand in white goods, Gupta said, “It is not only the white goods, but I think the entire consumer durables segment along with the brown goods like television and digital products like mobiles, and laptops, I think everything is going fine and going good. Demand is on the rise, including the whiteboards. Because of COVID in the last two years, there has been a structural shift in the thought process of all the consumers. Also, finance is no longer a worry because of consumer durables financing like Bajaj Finance etc. So I think that is the primary reason why we are seeing such a good uptick and positivity for the white goods and other consumer durables also.”

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On growth, Gupta said, “Number-wise, we are not yet stacking up so much. The growth is only in single digits. But what has changed is the value proposition. We have seen a growth of nearly 20 percent plus, in fact, it is more than 20 percent plus, so it would be around 20-25 percent. The primary reason being, all the prices have gone up in the last one to one-and-a-half years and secondly, as I said earlier, people are upgrading a lot.”

On demand pattern, Nandi said, “If you look at the demand pattern this year, it is more or less the high-end products which are selling more. Clearly there is a shift towards premiumization, there is a shift towards upgradation that is happening.”

“Now, categories that are going to lead growth this festive season definitely will be refrigerators and washing machines. AC takes a backseat this season, because the season for AC starts somewhere in the month of December. This year, we did have some restrictions during the first quarter because of the lockdowns. There is definitely a pent-up demand which will get consumed during the festive season and therefore, my expectation is that these two categories will significantly do well,” he mentioned.

For full management commentary, watch the video.

Also read: Apparel retailers eye double digit growth in festive season as consumers return to stores

(Edited by : Dipika)