LG India MD Soon Kwon with the powercut EverCool range of refrigerators
India can be a very challenging market for manufacturers of electronic goods. From extreme weather conditions to peculiar user behaviour, there are bunch of unseen factors that often mess up their plans in this market.
The erratic power supply in most parts of the country often leaves products like refrigerators ineffective. But companies like LG are now putting their thinking caps on to find solutions for these particular pain points.
The Korean consumer durables major has recently launched its Power-cut Evercool range of refrigerators, which for the first time offers seven hours of refrigeration and nine hours of freezing even without power.
So how do you maintain cooling without power? Normally, a refrigerator door is opened about 20 times a day. But without power this means fresh food becomes stale soon.
"In our new refrigerators there is an additional cooling cycle. So when the power goes, a wall activates and the piping and additional plates along with the coolant gases starts circulating along it cooling this surface. This retains cooling for an additional period," explains Sunil Chopra, LG India's manager Product Planning (refrigerators).
Typically a fridge can keep cool for a couple of hours without power.
In the freezer, there is an additional phase change material to retain cooling as it is easier to retain temperature from -20 degrees Celsius to 0 degree Celcius, says Chopra, adding that all these results are in standard conditions.
Rajeev Jain, Business Head, Home Appliances says LG India has for the last couple of years been working on India Insight Products where they use consumer research to solve specific pain points for India.
"The Evercool range is a product of innovations inspired by India. We plan to export this product to other countries that have similar conditions with erratic power supply," he adds.
LG launched this model from 185 to 360 litre models, thinking the high-end consumers won't need this feature. "But now we have been told that even in this high-end segment there is a demand for this technology as people usually don't run refrigerators on expensive backup power," says Chopra.
LG charges a premium of Rs 3,500 to Rs 5,000 for this technology in frost-free models and a flat Rs 1,000 in the one-door direct cool models.
LG also studied the peculiar demands of local customers and understood the preference for wider models as well as tray placements that reduce the need to bend.
"Normally the milk container is kept in the middle tray. Now, we have added a pullout tray so that you don't have to bend to pick up the containers," adds Chopra.
LG also has forced filtration in the fridges to suck out air and passing it through four dust, bacteria, fungi and deodorizer filters.
The consumer durables company is the market leader in refrigeration in India with a 37.2 per cent market share.
BT