B.Grimm Carrier Thailand, the distributor of Carrier air conditioners, plans to increase sales by 25% this year to 8.04 billion baht.
Woraset Tantisiriwat, the company's managing director, said higher sales are anticipated for both wall-mounted and commercial air conditioners.
Sales of wall-mounted air conditioners are forecast to grow by 50% this year to 3.75 billion baht, while those of commercial air conditioners are expected to grow by 10% to 4.29 billion baht.
To boost sales growth, the company has increased its marketing budget by 30% this year to 200 million baht, Mr Woraset said.
Three new flagship inverter models are set to be introduced to address consumers' varying needs.
The company is looking to expand the Carrier customer base by hiring actors Issara "Tom" Kitnitchi, Thanapob "Tor'' Leeratanakachorn and Pimchanok "Baifern" Luevisadpaibul as brand ambassadors to promote the range of air conditioners.
"Competition in the air-conditioner market is fierce," Mr Woraset said. "We will expand our target customers to younger people who will buy air conditioners based on rationale."
With this strategy, the company expects to sell 30,000 units of all three of the new Carrier X Inverter series this year.
Although economic conditions are not good, there is ample room to expand the air-conditioning market because of hot weather, Mr Woraset said.
In 2019, Carrier sales totalled 6.4 billion baht, a 35% increase from the previous year.
With a 17% market share, Carrier air conditioners are in the top three of the local air-conditioning market. Of the total 6.4 billion baht, 2.5 billion baht was from wall-mounted units, up 80% from 2018, and 3.9 billion baht was from commercial units, up 11% from 2018.
Thailand's air-conditioning market grew by 9% last year to 37 billion baht, driven by rising temperatures and PM2.5 dust pollution.
Of the total value of 37 billion baht, some 24 billion baht was from residential products and 13 billion baht was from commercial products.
The company has an ambitious goal to raise market share to 21% this year.