For a water-scarce city where there's a vehicle for every two persons, a cutdown in water consumption towards cleaning cars would be a most welcome step. A high-pressure car washer launched on Tuesday can bring down this water consumption by 55 per cent — something that may be welcomed by many.
"By falling back on the usual way of cleaning cars with buckets, one would end up using as many as four of them — that would be roughly 100 litres of water. However, with a high-pressure washer, you would spend only 35-45 litres. You end up saving at least 50 per cent of water, apart from the physical exertion needed to wash a car manually," explained Niranjan N Naik, global product manager (outdoor cleaning-pro segment) and head of product management for Asia-Pacific, Bosch Lawn and Garden Tools.
The home and car washer range, unleashed in the market by Bosch Power Tools, was launched in the do-it-yourself (DIY) category of products that is gaining ground. This is the market segment that Bosch is targeting. The company is looking at a market potential of Rs 100 crore in the DIY segment which is growing at an annual compounded rate of 20 per cent. Further, with urbanisation growing at 35 per cent, self-reliance and lifestyle changes have opened the doors to the DIY segment in India.
With this backdrop in mind, Bosch appeared to have chosen Bangalore very carefully. "If one is looking at young people who are willing to experiment, Bangalore is the right place. People here are well-informed about world class products. Moreover, people here have the affinity for picking up new gadgets and technologies. We did our own research on who would like to pick up the product immediately, and Bangalore came tops," said Vijay Pandey, vice-president, Bosch Power Tools.
Added Naik to Pandey's contention, "We have done a lot of events in Bangalore and noticed that there are many people here who have travelled abroad and are abreast with the latest in DIY ranges."
Karnataka, especially Bangalore, will remain one of the focus areas of Bosch, whose corporate office and main manufacturing unit is based in the city. "We chose Bangalore for a few reasons. Primarily, it is a pilot project for the DIY culture. We wanted to observe the trends closely; and since we are based in Bangalore, the city was a natural choice. We can directly gauge feedback for the product range," said Pandey.
