Godrej to foray into hospital furniture

Kochi, Aug 16: Godrej Furniture and Interiors Group, which has been rebranded 'Godrej Interio', is foraying into hospital furniture by the end of this year, company COO Anil Mathur said today.

Addressing a press conference here on the occasion of the national launch of the 'Godrej Interio' brand, he said Kerala had been chosen for the launch as it was a significant market, with a strong brand loyalty for Godrej products.

Mr Mathur said the new brand would cover office and home furniture besides specialised sectors like hospitals, hotels and laboratories.

The in-house design team was being assisted by designers from France to give an international look to products.

Under the new brand, modular kitchens would be launched for the home segment and open plan office systems for the office segment in addition to existing products such as storages, bedroom sets, dining sets and kids' furniture in steel and wood.

Talking of hospital furniture, Mr Mathur said this would cover the entire gamut from the reception area to the operation theatre including doctors' examination tables, ICU furniture and beds.

Describing Godrej as the market leader in the furniture sector, Mr Mathur said the company had a sales turnover of Rs 800 crore last year, of which Rs 100 crore was contributed by home furniture and another Rs 100 crore by storwell (cupboard). He estimated the total market for furniture to be Rs 5,000 crore in the organised sector and about Rs 10,000 crore in the unorganised sector.

While the market was growing at an annual rate of about 20 per cent, Godrej was growing at about 30 per cent. With the launch of the new brand, the company was targeting sales growth of 35 per cent in the next quarter.

Mr Mathur said the company had invested about Rs 70 crore on the upgradation of machinery and planned to spend another Rs 40 crore on the new brand. It was also planning to switch to multi-location manufacturing across the country, he said.

Announcing a special 'Onam' offer, which beginned tomorrow, Mr Raman Nair, chief of Kerala operations, said this would include discounts upto Rs 1500 on storewells, 20 per cent discounts on furniture, scratch cards with 10 gm gold coins as gifts and discount coupons of 15 per cent.

UNI