Japan’s Daikin to construct air conditioners in Nigeria in renewed push By Reuters

TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan’s Daikin Industries Ltd will start assembling air conditioners in Nigeria because it renews a push into Africa that had been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, a regional head mentioned on Thursday.

“We’re very quickly going to have a manufacturing facility in Nigeria,” Kanwal Jeet Jawa, the pinnacle of Daikin’s operations in India and East Africa, instructed Reuters.

Fairly than constructing a plant, Daikin is utilizing area in a facility supplied by a neighborhood distributor within the West African nation, he mentioned.

In East African nations, together with Tanzania and Kenya, Daikin is aiming to grow to be the main vendor of air conditioners, chillers and different cooling gear by 2025.

The corporate is seeking to replicate its success in India, the place it has crushed the likes of South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc to take high market share amid fast market enlargement pushed by the nation’s financial progress, Jawa mentioned.

Daikin’s manufacturing capability in India is ready to virtually double in 2023 with the opening of a brand new manufacturing facility, permitting it to ship gear to Africa that’s extra inexpensive and higher suited to native circumstances than air conditioners the Japanese firm makes elsewhere, Jawa mentioned.

“For East Africa, we are going to proceed to provide completed merchandise produced in India,” a Daikin spokesperson mentioned.