The country is experiencing a sweltering heat with the creeping up mercury mercilessly, prompting the city dwellers to buy electronic home appliances such as air conditioner and refrigerator. Producers and importers say they are in pressure to supply the home appliances to meet the escalating customers’ demand for the same as most of their stocks are coming to an end gradually.
Dhaka city dwellers experienced the hottest day in the last 54 years as the mercury shot up to 40.7 degrees Celsius on April 24, according to the Met office.
Unlike an average month of April, when people get a respite from the scorching heat due to short-lived nor’westers, the country had hardly seen any such storms in the month.
Amdadul Hoque Sarker, executive director of Walton Marketing
Department, said their sales of air conditioner increased by 38 per cent in the last three months (February-April).
‘As we are producer, we’ve already augmented our manpower in production line alongside raw materials and equipment to meet the growing demand for refrigerator,’ Amdadul told the news agency on Friday.
He said last year Walton had sold out around 15,000 air conditioners and this year they set a target to sell 30,000-35,000 air conditioners considering the rising demand.
‘Last year we used to produce 150-200 air conditioners a day and this year we are producing 500-700 a day,’ he said. ‘We’ve also increased our production of refrigerators in view of its high demand.’
Saifuddin Tuku, head of corporate sales (Electra Intl), said Electra usually imported targeting demand of one lakh consumers a year. The demand for air conditioner rose to 85 per cent this year compared to the last few years, he said.
Describing the sales as all-time high, managing director of AR Electronics Abdur Rahim said city dwellers were buying air conditioner to get respite from the unbearable heat.
Ahsan Habib, sales executive of Esquire Electronics Ltd, which import general, sharp and Mitsubishi AC, said they never saw the huge rush of city dwellers at their showroom like this year.
Manager (Singer Electronics) Anwar Hossain, said their stock of air conditioner was coming to an end with the rise in sales of home appliance.
‘We’ve already sold out our stock. The unbearable hot is leading customers to buy air conditioner. Sales of 8-10 AC is not matter immediately after opening out showroom,’ said Towhid Ahmed, in- charge (Mirpur Showroom) of Samsung (Electra).
-With New Age input
