Blue Star Managing Director B Thiagarajan said the air-conditioner maker is seeing early signs of a pickup after what he described as a 'bad year' for the cooling industry, though he cautioned that the second half recovery will not fully offset the summer-season slowdown.
"Second half is likely to be better than the first half, but it is not going to make up for the huge slowdown in demand during the summer season or during the GST blackout period," Thiagarajan told NDTV Profit in an interview, adding that "it is difficult to make up for the loss of sales during summer season."
Still, he pointed to improving traction from the festive period onward. “From September 22nd till Diwali, we saw a huge spike… November was good. December primary sales have been good so far,” he said, noting that “secondary sales movement is beginning to pick up.” With the New Year sale starting Dec. 15 and Republic Day promotions running up to Jan. 26, “the dealers are optimistic,” he said. “I think it is going to be a good quarter going forward.”
Thiagarajan acknowledged the disappointment of the year gone by. "We are not disheartened… It is disappointing by all scores. 2025 is a bad year, and we look forward to 2026," he said.
On the outlook for the next cycle, the Blue Star chief argued investors should look beyond base effects. “You have to go back and look at the two-year average. Then only you will get the right picture,” he said, adding he is “hoping that the summer will be strong because the fundamentals have not changed at all.” He flagged structural drivers such as low category penetration, stable pricing and localisation, and said he expects the market to hold up well in calendar year 2026. “I don’t see any problem whatsoever in… calendar year 2026,” he said.
Thiagarajan also spoke about “weatherproofing Blue Star” through its commercial and project businesses, even as he admitted 2025 has been challenging there too. “Large projects are not getting close to very fast… order finalisation have been slower,” he said. However, he highlighted pockets of strength: “Factories, data centres… These are the segments which we are market leaders. We continue to do well there.”
A key near-term variable is the energy label transition from Jan. 1, 2026, which he said makes January–March an execution-heavy quarter. "You have to manage the inventory and the manufacturing very, very judiciously,” he said, warning that cost pressures could intensify. While tighter norms can lift efficiency, "it pushes up the cost by 7–8%,” he said, adding companies may try to “contain the price increase… to around 5%" via design optimisation.
Blue Star has begun making new-label products "from November middle itself," Thiagarajan said, while expecting older inventory to be cleared via 'attractive prices and schemes' through the ongoing festive-to-Republic Day window.
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