The Rs 600-crore (Rs 6 billion) JCB India Ltd, the wholly-owned subsidiary of British major J C Bamford Excavators Ltd, is planning to make India as its exports hub. The company has recently initiated massive expansion of its Ballabhgarh plant in Haryana.
JCB India reported a sales turnover of over Rs 600 crore at the end of the calendar year 2003. The company, which sold 3,721 earthmoving equipment for the year, plans to sell over 5,000 equipment during the current year and achieve a sales turnover of Rs 800 crore (Rs 8 billion).
Vineet Jaiswal, chief manager (marketing) of JCB India told Business Standard on Thursday: "With the introduction of the 3D super Back Hoe Loader, JCB has introduced a host of new applications like working on riverbed, operating in slush during monsoons, site levelling, road construction in mountains, deep quarrying and dedicated loader applications."
"The new product, JCB 4D Back Hoe Loader, will further strengthen JCB's position in the Back Hoe Loader segment. With the four different range of product baskets, we expect a 30 per cent year-on-year growth in sales and we hope to record sales of over 5,000 equipment by end of this December," he added.
Jaiswal, who was in Ahmedabad to launch JCB's 'Tow and Show' event in Gujarat that showcases the 3D Super and 4D Back Hoe machines, also said that the company aims to hike the production capacity of its only plant in Haryana.
As the Europe's largest manufacturer of construction equipment, JCB exports around 74 per cent of its UK made products to more than 150 countries.
"With the capacity expansion in Ballabhgarh plant, we are looking at export opportunities in countries like Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka in the first phase and the geographical area of exports from India may be expanded at a later stage," said Jaiswal. But he denied to divulge details on the investment for the expansion project.
JCB increased its stake in the Indian venture by buying out the Escorts's stake in the erstwhile Escorts-JCB India.
"Despite the increase in competition from our rivals, JCB India still holds 81.6 per cent market share in India. In Gujarat we dominate with 82 per cent market share. With the launch of new products, we are looking at hiking our market share significantly in other states as well," Jaiswal said.
As part of its plans to the expand the market presence, company has decided to increase the number of outlets. So far it has added nine outlets to its existing 140 retail outlets. JCB is also planning to increase number of dealers. At present the company has 37 dealers.
