Walton eyes int’l market with high production

http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/2009/11/08/83704.html

Walton eyes int’l market with high production

Mehdi Musharraf Bhuiyan

Local consumer electronics giant Walton has aimed at more than doubling its daily production of refrigerators by the end of this year as the company is looking to make its mark in the wider international market.

The wholly Bangladeshi owned company- which is a concern of the local R.B. Group, is planning to increase its daily production output of refrigerator to 2,500 from its present level of around 1000, the company authority said Saturday.

“With the Eid ul Azha in the offing, demand for refrigerators, which is our trademark item, is running high in the local market at the moment” a senior marketing official of Walton told FE.

“However, after the end of the Eid season, we would increase our daily production to 2,500 per day as we are eyeing a number of overseas markets for our export”, said Moudud Parvez Mamun, Marketing Manager of Walton.

The conglomerate says that recent years have seen a boom in sales of its locally manufactured refrigerators in the domestic market and currently a total of 11 various brands of Walton refrigerators are available in the local market.

“We already have talked with dealers from a total of 13 countries around the world and by next year we would begin to export refrigerators in Malaysia and Saudi Arabia” Mamun said, adding “Walton has already shipped a range of its refrigerators to Sudan”.

The company says that the lower price of its products would give them a competitive advantage over other international competitors in the overseas market.

In addition, Walton is also looking to gear up its production of locally manufactured motorcycles by more than three fold, which it has identified as another highly potential market both home and abroad.

“Currently we churn out around 300 motorcycles per day from our factory in Gazipur. But by the beginning of the next year, we aiming to increase it to almost a thousand”, Mamun said.

The Bangladeshi company has recently signed an agreement with the Malaysian auto manufacturer Ageth to set up an automobile plant in its factory premise.

“Now we are hoping to commence the establishment of the plant by December which would ultimately see us manufacturing private cars and other automobiles within the country”, Mamun added.

Apart from the manufacturing of refrigerators and motorcycles, the company also assembles television, washing machine, generator, battery and energy saving lights while in the next summer; it is also planning to market its locally manufactured air conditioners.

R.B. Group- to which Walton is a subsidiary, first started its journey in 1977. The company started manufacturing and assembling electronic products back in 1996 and thus has played a pioneering role in electronics manufacturing in the country.

Posted in Automobiles/Vehicles, Domestic Appliances/Home Electronics, Emerging Industries, Engineering Sector, Industrial/Manufacturing and Export Processing Zones