Godrej Appliances on product launch spree, to introduce TV sets

LUCKNOW: Godrej Appliances is on an aggressive launch drive and plans to introduce atleast one new product or model every four months.

With a number companies entering into the home appliances segment, Godrej has taken course to launching newer models and innovative products in the home appliances segment to beat the clutter and grow its market share.

Assistant Vice President, Godrej Appliances, Rajeev Dube said that they are present in all kinds of home appliances and are also testing the market for colour televisions, which was one gap in their portfolio.

"We have soft launched TV sets in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and parts of Maharashtra. We are testing the market response and have got encouraging response" said Mr Dube.

The company plans to launch either a new product or a technologically superior and innovative model of existing products very four months, he said.

The latest offering by the company has been the music-enabled refrigerators. The Edge SX Muziplay refrigerators besides working as a fridge would bring FM, MP3 music to kitchens and one can also recharge mobile sets through gadgets provided in the refrigerator.

Also Godrej plans to have its own exclusive showrooms across India and plans are underway to open them in the next couple of months.

With large number of consumer products the group would be opening showrooms, which would market all kinds of home appliances, decor, furniture under the Godrej brand name, said Mr Dube.

Schneider Electric to buy 74% in Luminous for Rs 1,400 crore

NEW DELHI: France's Schneider Electric will buy 74% in inverter-maker Luminous Power Technologies for Rs 1,400 crore, making its eighth acquisition in two years in the rapidly-growing market.

Luminous Power would continue to operate with the same management and brand. Luminous had debt of Rs 240 crore at the end of March, earned Rs 1,100 crore revenue during the year, and employs about 3,000 people at nine sites in India and China.

ET had first reported Schneider's approach on April 1.

Schneider Electric India managing director Olivier Blum said the joint venture would provide the company a strong platform to reach out to Indian consumers that is growing at 20% every year. The company plans to piggyback on Luminous brand to launch electrical appliances including switchboards in India. Luminous at present has presence in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nigeria. Blum said the deal would help Schneider tap Luminous' 25,000 retail outlets. The company seeks to foray into Middle East , Africa and Asia markets.

Post acquisition, Luminous would continue to function as a separate entity, Blum said. Following the deal, India would become seventh largest market for Schneider in the world. Together, Schneider and Luminous would have around 11,500 employees in the country. Schneider earned revenues of about Rs 4,500 crore from its India operations in 2010. Schneider has made eight acquisitions in India in the past 24 months. Two transactions of APW President and Digilink were completed this year.

Havells to enter small home appliances business

NEW DELHI: Electrical equipment maker Havells India will start selling small home-andkitchen appliances from July, hoping to profit from a Rs 5,200-crore market currently dominated by Philips, Panasonic, Morphy Richards and Bajaj.

Havells' product line-up will include mixers, irons, hand blenders and cooking and brewing appliances.

"The small home appliances segment is all set to boom," said Havells India joint managing director Anil Gupta said, adding that Havells would use its brand recall in the lighting segment to position itself in the home appliance space.

Havells will outsource 70% of manufacturing to local vendors and the rest to its partners in China , where its design centre will be responsible for developing the products.

The company, 30%-owned by QRG Enterprises, plans to invest Rs 70 crore in marketing its small appliances range over the next two to three years. A part of investments will also go into research and development.
Sales of domestic home appliances are growing at 15-18% every year. Premium appliances, which contributes a fifth to the total market, are growing even higher at 30-35%.

Gupta said the products would be priced competitively and will be comparable with those of Philips and Panasonic.
Some other prominent players in the segment include Usha and Maharaja Whiteline.

Havells products will be initially sold in top 40 cities through some 4,000 outlets retailing electrical goods. The products will also be sold through 115 exclusive Havells Galaxy stores, which will be increased to 200 by the end of this financial year.

The company also plans to export its products to Latin America and Thailand using the distribution channel of Sylvania, which it bought in early 2007. This acquisition had catapulted Havells into the top league of lighting equipment makers, behind Philips, Osram and GE.

Havells, which clocked a turnover of. Rs 5,600 crore in the year ended March'11, also sells fans and launched its water heater range in October last year.

Titan Industries to merge Titan Properties subsidiary with self

BANGALORE: Watch-to-jewellery major Titan Industries will merge its wholly-owned subsidiary Titan Properties with it, a company filing in the Bombay Stock Exchange said. The Bangalore-based company incorporated the subsidiary to develop a Titan Township for employees at Hosur in Tamil Nadu.

The company had achieved the objectives for which it was formed and has decided against undertaking further developmental activities, Titan Industries said, explaining the rationale for amalgamation. Titan Properties would file the requisite petition with the Madras High Court, it said on Wednesday.

Titan also has a factory manufacturing jewellery for Tanishq at Hosur. In March this year, the jewellery division Tanishq was also merged with its parent.

Titan Industries posted a 71.94 % increase in standalone net profit to Rs 430.42 crore for the year ended March 31, 2011 from Rs 250.32 crore in the year-ago period. The company also undertook a stock split, subdividing equity shares of the face value of Rs 10 each into 10 equity shares of a face value of Re 1 each.

IndusInd Bank to add 150 branches in FY 12

MUMBAI: Private sector lender IndusInd Bank today said it plans to open nearly 150 branches in the country during FY 12 to take its total network strength to over 450 branches.

"IndusInd Bank plans to touch 450 branches in India by March 2012," a release issued by the bank, after the inauguration of its 301st branch in central Mumbai's Prabhadevi, said.

During the current fiscal, the bank will be focussing on distribution, branch expansion and providing universal banking solutions, the release said.

"The bank is stepping up its branch expansion momentum and this branch will be one more step in our journey to become a universal bank. The focus for us will be to provide unique banking experience to our customers," the bank's Managing Director and Chief Executive, Romesh Sobti, said in the release.

The Prabhadevi branch will be open across the year, including Sundays and other holidays and also has an automated teller machine, which allows customers the freedom to choose notes from a mix of Rs 100, Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations, the release said.

Not chasing to match Hero Honda's production capacity: HMSI

TAPUKARA (Rajasthan): Two-wheeler maker Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI) today said it will not be chasing to match Hero Honda's production capacity but would rather focus on improving products and service quality to become a market leader in India.

"My target is not the numerical positioning but (improving) products quality and service quality. Otherwise, it is not so easy to be number one by 2020," HMSI's new President and CEO Keita Muramatsu told PTI here.

In March this year after Honda finalised breaking off from Hero Honda, Muramatsu's predecessor Shinji Aoyama had said HMSI was aiming to be number one in India in the next decade.

Admitting that there is a huge gap in the production capacity between HMSI and Hero Honda, Muramatsu said: "I don't think we will be looking at (matching) the capacity of Hero Honda but what we are looking at is the growth of the market and we have already opened our second plant".

HSMI's second plant, which was opened here today, will have a total annual capacity of 12 lakh. It is investing a total of Rs 860 crore on the plant. The firm's current plant at Gurgaon has an annual capacity of 16 lakh units.

Besides, the company will also invest Rs 1,000 crore to set up a third plant in Karnataka that will have an annual capacity of 12 lakh units by 2013.

On the other hand Hero Honda's annual capacity is 61.5 lakh units as on April this year.

Muramatsu said there is good business prospect in the long term in India and HMSI is looking to improve its position.

"Currently we are at number four, we have high possibility of improving. Our focus area is on addressing the dissatisfaction of customers like back orders and service quality," he said.

Commenting on the significance of HMSI's second plant, Honda Motor Co President and CEO Takanobu Ito said: "Our new plant is not only important for India but very significant for the whole global operations. India is a very important market for us".

The plant will employ around 3,200 people in total. It will start production by July with the rolling out of scooter Activa and 110cc (rpt) 110cc bike CB Twister.

Muramatsu said with the third plant in Karnataka coming up the company will be able to cover the vast Indian market, along with the two plants in Haryana and Rajasthan.

TVS Motor May sales rise 18% to 185,930 units

MUMBAI: TVS Motor Co , India's No. 3 two-wheeler maker, said on Wednesday its total sales in May rose over 18 percent on year to 185,930 units from 156,980 units a year ago.

Total two-wheeler sales grew 18 percent with sales of 181,891 units in May compared with 154,667 units recorded in May last year, TVS said in a statement.

Exports grew 42 precent, recording a total sales of 26,168 units in May.

Mercedes-Benz sales increase 36% to 561 units in May

NEW DELHI: Premium car maker Mercedes-Benz India today reported 36 per cent rise in its sales for May, 2011 at 561 units.

The company had sold 411 units during the corresponding period last year, Mercedes-Benz India said in a statement.

During the January-May period, the company's sales soared by 60 per cent to 3,233 units from 2,015 units in the year-ago period, it added.

"Mercedes-Benz performed extremely well in both in the sedan segment as well as in the SUV segment...We will continue with our robust performance for the rest of 2011 and create new benchmarks," Mercedes-Benz India Director (Marketing and Sales) Debashis Mitra said.

Bharti Africa inks network expansion deal with Huawei

NEW DELHI: Bharti Airtel has awarded a contract to Chinese telecoms gearmaker Huawei Technologies to expand and manage its mobile network in Africa, the companies said, in a deal that two sources said was worth about $400 million.

Bharti said in February that Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks and Huawei would be its network partners in Africa.

Huawei will design, upgrade and expand Bharti's second- and third-generation (2G and 3G) mobile networks in Africa and would also manage operations and maintenance, the companies said on Wednesday, without disclosing financial details.

One of the two sources said Huawei had been given about 40 percent of the total Bharti Africa network contracts. Both sources confirmed that deals with Ericsson and Nokia Siemens would be announced later.

A Bharti Airtel spokesman declined to comment beyond the statement.

Indian mobile market leader Bharti last year acquired mobile operations in 15 African countries in a $9 billion deal, and currently operates in 16 African countries.

Bharti has forecast capital expenditure of $1-$1.2 billion for the African operations for the current financial year to March 2012.

India could be world's third largest economy by 2030: StanChart

MUMBAI: India could be one of the largest economies in the world in the next two decades, according to an official from the Standard Chartered Bank .

"We are projecting that by 2030, China, India and Brazil would be the world's first, third and fourth-largest economies," Standard Chartered Bank's Global Head (Client Access Transaction Banking) Neal Livingston said at an event here today.

"Asia accounts for a third of the world's GDP and is responsible for more than two-third of the world GDP growth," he said.

The bank expects a roll-over in the top five economies of the world and believes that their power could be under threat from the BRIC nations.

India's GDP is expected to be $ 30-trillion by 2030. Increased capacity, better infrastructure, quality of education, health and hygiene are likely to boost India's growth.

By 2030, China is likely to supersede the US and would reign as the super economy. China's GDP volume is expected to reach $ 73.5-trillion, the highest in the world. In 2010, China's GDP reached $ 5.9-trillion.

The country with the highest population in the world will remain the main engine of growth that is sustained by the manufacturing industry.

Moreover, the highly educated in China surged significantly.

During the past 30-years, China's economy has changed from a centrally planned system that was largely closed to international trade to a more market-oriented one that has a rapidly-growing private sector. A major component supporting China's rapid economic growth has been exports growth.

Brazil's GDP volume is expected to be around $ 12.2- trillion by 2030.