72-year-old Voltas turns to 14-year-old Atomberg for help

- Voltas has tied-up with the 14-year-old Atomberg Technologies to localise its compressor supply chain - Atomberg’s compressor prototype is only five months old, and is largely unproven in the mass market as of now - This comes as Voltas’ profitability remains subdued, owing to industry-wise commodity pressures and weakness in its own businesses - The JV is another piece of a larger effort to fix a business that has struggled to turn its scale into sustained profitability Enter your email address to receive a daily summary of all our stories. In mid-August, electronics major Voltas announced a joint venture (JV) with the relatively pubescent Atomberg Technologies. The intention was simple: to localise Voltas’s supply chain for AC compressors, a quintessential component of an AC that makes up a fifth of its cost. For long, the company has been synonymous with its ACs, and has been the market leader in the segment since 2012. But what should have been a buoyant moment turned rather flat. Significantly, Voltas’s revenue has fallen in three of the last five quarters, even as its profits have swung between extremes. This as the stock continues to trade close to its 52-week The JV itself has its detractors. For starters, this isn’t Voltas’s first attempt at localising its supply chain. In 2022, it had announced a JV with Hong Kong-based component manufacturer Highly International to do just that—before the deal This, then, should have made the Voltas-Atomberg partnership even more prescient. After all, it was bringing a critical, high-value component onshore for the first time. Atomberg, itself, is no noob and has already been supplying “critical motors and electronics components” to AC makers such as Voltas, Godrej, and Bluestar, according to its draft papers. But here’s the problem. Its first-ever AC-compressor prototype was only To some, 14-year-old Atomberg might also seem too young a partner for 72-year-old Voltas. In fact, in the company’s Q1 FY27 earnings call, Mukundan Menon, Voltas’s managing director, said that the JV’s manufacturing plant is expected to start with a capacity of just a million units. Credits 72-year-old Voltas turns to 14-year-old Atomberg for help Know someone who'd appreciate this read? Share this story with them.