Grundfos to pump up presence in India

Launching new products, entering newer markets and introducing newer applications are its focus areas. After gaining a firm foothold in South and West of India, Grundfos is looking at Northern and Eastern markets to boost its sales.

NK Ranganath, MD, Grundfos India, said the company has been witnessing a compounded annual growth of 30 per cent. 

“This year has been exceptionally good in terms of our topline as well as bottom-line. We saw good cash flows and better profitability too,” he said, at a press conference here to announce the launch of its integrated water booster pump – Scala 2. 

In fact, Grundfos saw its sales and order booking peak to the highest post the demonetisation drive announcement on November 8, he said, adding the global company (with an annual production of over 16 million pump units) is among the world’s leading pump manufacturers. 

The domestic market accounts for 12 per cent of its overall sales and Grundfos India is expecting 15 per cent growth over last year. Grundfos India, which reported a turnover of Rs 383 crore (profit before tax) last year, is expecting to close December 2016 at Rs 425 crore. The company follows the calendar year for accounting. 

“We are not in the low-end market and our constant effort has been to conserve energy,” Ranganath said, adding the company is focusing on the North and Eastern regions, anticipating a faster pace of growth than in other places. 

Estimating Rs 6,000 crore as the market size that it operates in a pump industry worth Rs 10,000 crore (constituting organised and unorganised players), Ranganath says Grundfos has always been in the forefront of innovative technologies. The company’s range of products have a heavy component of embedded electronics using intelligence that has helped it to look at Smart City projects. “We are in discussion stages with a few cities to explore the scope for our demand-driven distribution products. These sensor-driven products have been successfully running in Romania, Chile and Denmark,” he said, adding Grundfos discussions with a few cities such as Jaipur and Bhubaneswar, were still at a nascent stage. 

Highlighting the quality and reliability aspects of Grundfos pumps, he said the spare parts sales were down by 50 per cent last year. The company is also exploring the solar segment and the products that are in research stage include recirculation of hot-water, sewage and industrial water recycling. ”With the cost of technology coming down, we would like to focus on products that can be put to good use,” Ranganath added.