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| Edited By: Ashish K Tiwari |Source: DNA |Updated: Jul 11, 2018, 06:30 AM IST
Brand Syska has had a good run with its LED lighting business followed by a foray into mobile accessories and personal care appliances in the past. The company is now entering a new business-to-customer category with wires and cables business. Rajesh Uttamchandani, director, Syska Group, in conversation with Ashish K Tiwari, shares details about the new foray, market opportunity and so on.
The wires and cables business foray is an extension of our LED lighting products business that has witnessed a very encouraging response from Indian households. This business will leverage our existing distribution of LED products and focus mainly on the business-to-customer (b2c) house wire market. Wire is a high-value item and the market has been dominated by the unorganised sector prior to implementation of goods and services tax (GST). That scenario has changed considerably post GST and we think there is a huge untapped market between the unorganised and established branded players. That's the gap we will be targeting with our B2C foray in wires and cables segment and further strengthen our B2C play in the market.
It's a Rs 12,000-crore market of which around Rs 6,000 crore is unorganised. In the first year of operations, we are targeting a revenue of Rs 500 crore in the current fiscal and are confident of achieving this number in the next nine months.
Our products will be flame retardant low smoke wires. They will also be RoHS-compliant, energy saving, high-heat resistant, anti-termite, anti-rodent, free from lead and halogen gas and have high current carrying capacity, among other special features. We have put together an advertising campaign with Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan detailing the uniqueness. We have earmarked marketing spend of Rs 30 crore over the next three months for the launch of wires and cables business. The campaign will hit the market soon. Pricing will be at par with branded players like Finolex and Polycab as others are priced on the higher side.
We have already invested Rs 75 crore to set up a plant for wires and cables in the north, near the Hero Motocorp facility. Spread on a six-acre land parcel out of total 19 acres at Dharuhera-Rewari, Haryana, the plant currently boasts of 1.5 lakh square feet area and employs 300 employees in the first phase. We have enough space to expand up to four lakh sqaure feet as demand picks up. The present manufacturing capacity is six to seven lakh coils a month. At full capacity, the plant will be able to double the production to over 15 lakh coils a month. We have received BIS certificate two days ago and production will start from Monday. The facility will have a monthly turnover of around Rs 100 crore in the initial three to four months.
We will definitely leverage our pan-India distribution network at a later stage. However, we will focus on the western region to start with and eventually go national. We already are a distributor for Samsung products in the western region and will use the strong network of distributors to sell our wire and cables here. Our LED lighting products are sold across India through a network of over three lakh dealers. For the wire and cables business, we will be tapping 80,000 dealers in western region to start with.
Last year, we closed at Rs 70 crore and are at number two position (online segment) after Philips. We are targeting Rs 150 crore for personal care in the current fiscal. These products are manufactured by the same vendor who makes the appliances for Philips, Braun, Panasonic, etc. We have invested in the moulds there and are getting it manufactured by the same supplier.
