Toshiba Carrier acquires 20% of Midea Air Conditioning

Toshiba Carrier Corporation has completed the deal to acquire 20% of Guandong Midea Electric Appliances Co., Ltd., Air Conditioning Division. According to Toshiba Carrier, Midea Air Conditioning is the 2 nd largest air-conditioning company in China and has sales of 1.2 billion USD. Under the terms of this agreement, Midea Air Conditioning will manufacture and distribute residential and light commercial air conditioners under the Midea and Toshiba brands. With this investment, Carrier now has access to the residential business in China , which is one of the largest and fastest growing air conditioning markets with close to 20 million residential systems sold in 2003 and an estimated value of 5 billion USD. Production capacity is planned to reach 10 million units for both brands.