Grundfos To Ramp up Production In India

Danish pump maker, Grundfos, is seeing growth in emerging markets -- mainly India and China -- while its traditional markets in Europe are in financial doldrums. The company aims to double its sales to Euro 100 million in India in the next three to five years. During the period, the company will invest Euro 40-50 million in the country.

Grundfos, which has its plant in Chennai, will set up an additional facility near Pune. The company plans to focus on solar-powered solutions to tap the rural opportunity, besides expanding its presence in regions other than south India for its industrial pumps and domestic household solutions.

Recently, Grundfos and Sunlit Future have entered into a joint initiative to bring drinking water to 100 villages in rural India. The first phase will deliver water to 12,400 people in 28 villages in Orissa, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Given that in India, over 700,000 villages do not have access to water, an off-grid, self-sustaining solar pumping solution is the quickest way. The Grundfos Foundation has agreed to co-sponsor the construction of the first 28 of 100 solar-powered pumping systems in 100 villages, the company said.

“We focus on developing products specifically for the Indian market with local manufacturing and sourcing of components from local suppliers. India is a potential market. We focus to double the revenues from Euro 50 million in 3-4 years", said Carlo Prola, Group Senior Vice President, Grundfos Management A/S.

About 40 per cent of Grundfos production is in low cost markets and the company is following a strategy of "think globally, produce locally". The Euro 4 billion group has a presence in 55 countries. It has 11 sales companies in emerging markets, two in China and 26 sales companies in Europe. The company has more than 50 per cent market share in circulator pump markets.

N K Ranganath, Managing Director, Grundfos India, said the company has been growing by 32 per cent annually since the last 16 years. "We just started exporting components back to Europe", he said.

Grundfos India generates revenues of Rs 360 crore annually and had sold over 9,000 solar pumps across the country. The company has installed solar pumps in Maharashtra, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The solar driven pump is witnessing a constant increase in demand, said Ranganath.

Grundfos Pumps India, a subsidiary of Grundfos Denmark, also looks after the company sales in Bangladesh, Bhutan and Maldives.