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Informist, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025

 

 

--Symphony: Record number US retailers seek to source air coolers from co

--Symphony: To use three-pronged strategy to achieve growth going ahead

--Symphony: One lever of growth to come from exports, mostly to US

--Symphony: Seek to capture bigger pie of unorganised market in India

 

By Sunil Raghu

 

AHMEDABAD – Geopolitical tensions across the world and the US government's tariffs on imports from India notwithstanding, a large number of US retail majors have made enquiries to source air coolers from Symphony Ltd., a senior company official said. "Everybody seems to believe that the tariff issue will be resolved sooner or later, so many of the US retail giants are in advanced discussion with us to shift their procurement from China to India," said Nrupesh Shah, the managing director, corporate affairs, Symphony, told Informist in an interaction.

 

 

The company is equally focused on expanding into other geographies. The global air-cooler market that Symphony has a presence in is valued around INR 400 billion. Its trading subsidiary in Brazil, launched three years ago, has begun delivering results and is expected to generate about INR 400 million–INR 500 million in sales in current financial year. Subsidiaries in Mexico, China, and Australia, coupled with country managers across Europe and the West Asia, are further building Symphony's global footprint, Shah said.

 

Symphony may already be selling in the US markets but it sees the opportunity in the country as arguably one of the most exciting lever for growth. The opportunity for Symphony in the air cooler segment in the US is said to be around INR 21 billion and even a modest share offers outsized returns for the Ahmedabad-based company.

 

 

Shah said the company was seeking to utilise three levers to boost its growth--demand pull from export markets, especially US; affordable products that would help it corner sizeable pie of the domestic unorganised market; and continued product diversification--in the coming years.

 

Size of the Indian air-cooler market is estimated at INR 50 billion, with 40% catered to by organised players such as Symphony and the remaining by local unorganised players. Symphony accounts for nearly 50% of the organised air-cooler market in the country. It earned a revenue of INR 15.8 billion in 2024-25 (Apr-Mar) and INR 2.51 billion in Apr-Jun.

 

Talking about the levers for future growth, Shah said key one was the company's product diversity. Symphony is no longer just an air-cooler company, he said. In FY25, non-cooler segments such as water heaters, kitchen coolers, and table-top fans accounted for nearly 22% of revenue, up from single digits.

 

Other than product diversity, Symphony is also targeting the vast unorganised segment in India, which still accounts for about 60% of volumes and 40% value. Shah claimed that the company has now developed right priced products and set up dealer distribution network suited for Tier II and Tier III towns. "Capturing 20–30% of the unorganised market over time would be phenomenal for growth," Shah said, adding that this makes him "optimistic" and "bullish" about being able to deliver a strong high double-digit compounded annual growth rate across all business, without any "capital blockage".

 

 

However, in the short-term, Symphony may well continue to face rough weather owing to early and prolonged monsoons in 2025, that led to poor demand for air coolers this season. In 2024, the sector had grown by nearly 100% as summers relatively were longer due to lack of rains. 

 

The company managing director said that the inventory levels in the channel were higher than the usual at this point of time because there is a carry-forward inventory of summer. "So there is likely to be some spill over impact for September as well as December quarter," he said. "We do not guide but I clearly spelt out that June 2025 saw the de-growth year-on-year...but it was the second-best quarter for Symphony," Shah said.

 

At 0952 IST, shares of Symphony traded at INR 888.30 per share on the National Stock Exchange, down 0.65%.  End

 

IST, or Indian Standard Time, is five-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT

 

Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury

 

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