Kobleco Construction to double sales in 2011

April 14th, 2011 - 9:47 pm ICT by IANS  

Chennai, April 14 (IANS) The Indian subsidiary of Japanese earthmoving equipment major Kobelco Construction Machinery plans to double the sales of its hydraulic excavators this year, said a top company official Thursday.

“Last year we sold 400 units and this year we hope to double that number as we now have our factory here,” Vikram Sharma, managing director and CEO of Kobelco Construction Equipment India, told reporters.

Selling imported excavators since 2007 in India, the company logged a turnover of around Rs.200 crore in 2010.

On Thursday the company commissioned its Rs.70 crore 1,200 units per annum hydraulic excavator factory located in Sri City industrial estate, Andhra Pradesh.

According to Sharma, the factory will initially roll out 20 tonne excavators and couple of years later 14 and 35 tonners will be rolled out.

He said nearly 50 percent of the components are localised while the critical items like engine, hydraulics and electronics are imported from Japan.

“We have inventory of engines and other components to take care of two months production. By that time the situation in Japan would improve and supplies would normalise,” he said when queried about the Japanese tsunami impact on Kobelco’s production back home.

The Indian excavator market is on the upswing after going down since 2007 when the total industry sales were 9,089 units.

According to Kobelco officials, in 2008 the total industry sales was 8,561 units and in 2009 it was 7,650 units.

In 2010, the industry sales went up to 10,742 due to the investments in infrastructure picking up.

The Indian plant is expected to touch its total capacity (1,200 units per annum) in 2013 when the second phase of investment will kick in to scale up the capacity.

“Kobelco is the first Japanese manufacturer in Sri City industrial estate to start production. Out of the 50 units in the estate, around 20 are close to commence commercial production,” Co-Founder and Managing Director Ravinndra Sannareddy, Sri City (P) Ltd said.

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