Wheels India to widen overall customer base

At the 59th AGM of the Company, S Ram, Chairman, said the entity plans to widen its customer base across the products it manufactures and reduce the cyclical impact of some of the segments it supplies into. The company has started supplying bogie suspension parts for LHB coaches to the Integral Coach Factory. The Indian Railways, with a view to improving passenger safety, plans to introduce LHB coaches on all trunk routes in the country “We plan to start supplies to other railway factories in the coming year and see strong demand from the Indian Railways for the next 2-3 years.”

The organisation is a major supplier of wheels to the construction and mining equipment industry globally. Ram said there was an increase in demand from the company’s customers from the second half of last year and expected this trend to continue in the coming years. On the Forged Aluminium Wheels business, Ram said “We are focused on export of forged aluminium wheels for trucks and trailers. In the latter part of this year, we expect this business to show good growth, after new capacities are in place at our end.”

Answering a question on the passenger car JV with TOPY Industries, Srivats Ram, MD, Wheels India Ltd, said “TOPY is the leading wheel manufacturer in Japan for the car industry.

They get early development advantage for all new models there. Being aligned with them, we get into new models that these Japanese manufacturers introduce in the country. We are also working with them on export of wheels to South East Asia to their Japanese customers.”

Ram said the company sees high growth in demand of wheels for agricultural tractors on top of growth seen last year. “The normal monsoon, various government schemes and loan waivers have boosted the agricultural economy. We see this trend continuing this year.” The organisation has evolved into a major supplier of components for the windmill industry in India. Ram said that the domestic industry for windmill business is seeing a recovery. It is also working with its customers for export of components.

In its air suspension business, the company had a full year of production of lift axle systems for multi-axle vehicles in FY18 “With a move towards heavier duty vehicles, we expect this volume to grow in the coming year.” The company registered a 38% rise in its net profit for the Q1 ended June 39, 2018 at Rs 18.01 cr on revenues of Rs 746.28 cr.

The company is a manufacturer of steel wheels for trucks, buses, agricultural tractors, passenger cars, utility vehicles and construction equipment. The company has manufacturing plants at Padi, Pune, Rampur, Sriperumbudur and Pant Nagar with a combined overall annual capacity of 10 mn wheels. Over 50% of the company’s business accrues from the manufacture of automotive wheels for cars, commercial vehicles and agricultural tractors while the balance comes from wheels/components for construction and mining equipment, air suspension for CVs and components for energy equipment.