The company is planning to sell 85,000 units of direct cool refrigerators during the calender year at aggressive price points, LG Electronics India vice president Rajiv Karwal said.

Last year, the company had sold 33,000 units of these refrigerators. The direct cool refrigerators market was estimated to be over 2 million unit market last year.

Besides, LG Electronics India is introducing a fresh range of frost free refrigerators to replace the existing models.

In another development, the company has decided to defer manufacturing plans for frost free refrigerators by a year. Over capacity in the market is cited as one of the reason for this decision.

LG Electronics had planned to begin production of these refrigerators during year 2000. It now appears that the facility would be up in 2001. Investments requiredto set up the plant would begin to flow in next year.

The company is also looking at the option of sourcing the frost free refrigerators from Indian manufacturers under an original equipment manufacturing (OEM) agreement. LG Electronics currently sources the direct cool refrigerators from the Allwyn facility.

The company is also targetting increased sales of frost free models during the year. It is targeting retail sales of 35,000 frost free machines in 1999 as against 23,000 units sold last year.

LG Electronics had entered the Indian frost free refrigerators market in May 1997 with models in over 300 litre capacity. The company claims it has market share of 37 per cent in the over 300 litre frost free segment. This particular segment is currently a 65,000-70,000 units market.

On replacing the frost free range with new models, Karwal said, the company was bringing in models which were chloro fluro carbon (CFC) free. The new models will use 134A as refrigeratant instead of CFC. Karwal said his companyhad begun the process of phasing out CFC as a refrigerant in no-frost machines during 1998.

The company has also started replacing hydrochloroflurocarbon (HCFC), the refrigerant used in the airconditioners, with a more environment friendly R-22. LG Electronics is the first Korean company to replace HCFC as a refrigerant in the airconditioners, it claimed.