Henan Xinfei Electric Co Ltd targets at a 20-percent share of the market for refrigerators and freezers in the southern China area, more than doubling its current share.

"We grabbed a lion's share in Henan, Shandong and Liaoning provinces, and now we try to expand in the south China market," said Teo Tong Kooi, chairman of Xinfei, the country's second-largest refrigerator producer. It now has 12 percent of the Chinese market.

Last year, Xinfei's sales in Guangdong Province jumped 40 percent from a year earlier, faster than any other area across the country, Teo said on the sidelines of the Pan Delta Super Racing Festival in Zhuhai in the province. Xinfei has been the title sponsor of the race for three years.

The company, partly owned by Singapore-based Hong Leong Asia Ltd, expects sales to expand 60 percent this year. Its sales of refrigerators and freezers grew 15 percent last year to 3.53 million sets, and the sales of air-conditioners rose 21 percent.

When some domestic white goods makers raised prices to reduce the impact brought by rising material costs, Teo said Xinfei "invested 400 million yuan (US$57 million) last year in our production lines, which have all been put into use in May, that brought us two million more sets annually."

(Shanghai Daily March 17, 2008)