Prices of several home appliances including televisions, air conditioners (AC), washing machines, and refrigerators are likely to increase by 5-6% soon. This has been triggered by a sudden rise in prices of packaging materials, along with an increase in component costs and freight charges.
Sources told Economic Times (ET) that white goods manufacturers have already started informing retailers about the impending price hike from April.
This represents the second price hike in the last three months, with the overall price increase for these products going up to 10-12%, sources added.
LG Electronics India, which is India’s largest white goods maker, indicated that there will be a 3-4% price hike across appliances next month, after the 6-7% price increase in January.
“The overall impact on input price increase is 11-13% for the last couple of months and we decided to pass it to consumers in phases so that it does not burden them,” LG Electronics India vice president Vijay Babu told ET.
Similarly, TV panel prices have reportedly increased by nearly 20-30%, and will be passed on to consumers.
Companies took a conscious decision to implement the price hike in phases as it would not be practically possible to absorb such a massive hike in input prices, according to Kamal Nandi, president of the appliances industry body, Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association.
Ahead of the summer season, leading AC manufacturers are planning to increase prices by 5-8%, even as they are hopeful of double-digit growth.
Panasonic has informed in a notification that there will be a price increase of 6-8% for ACs and 2-5% for washing machines, refrigerators and microwave ovens in April. This is due to increased prices of copper, aluminium, steel and plastic which has, in turn, affected the cost of production.
Earlier in December 2020, it was reported that televisions, washing machines, microwave ovens, and other home appliances were set to get costlier that month due to a 15-40% increase in input costs.