Summer a washout? Consumer durable players see 25-30% decline in sales of cooling products

The summer season has turned out to be a near washout for the consumer durable industry. As per the industry, sales — especially of cooling products — have declined 25-30 percent in the months of April and May across the country with the northern belt being the biggest laggard. The primary reason for the decline in sales has been unseasonal rains.

According to Bizom, sales were down 17.9 percent in April and down 12.1 percent in May this year on a year-on-year basis, while sales had grown 11.8 percent in the January to March period. Vijay Sales said, sales for cooling products such as ACs have been down 30 percent YoY in April, down 15-20 percent in May, while Blue Star expects a flat to low single-digit growth for the summer season.

In an interaction with CNBC-TV18, Nilesh Gupta, Director, Vijay Sales said, "The biggest silver lining is since the monsoon got delayed. We haven't seen monsoon even now in the West so we have seen a real uptick in the air conditioners also this month, and which also indicates that the consumer spending is not a problem and I don't see any challenge in the quarter two most probably because of the unseasonal rains, which we saw the dip in the sales of air conditioners and air coolers there's also a strong possibility that now I think this is not going to be something which is one of a kind."