Kone Elevator India will start manufacturing escalators in India from the first half of 2024 as part of its expansion programme, said a top official.
“Right now, the pilot is going on at Sriperumbudur plant. It will be completed in January,” said Amit Gossain, Managing Director, Kone Elevator India Pvt. Ltd. during an interaction.
Till now, Kone India used to import escalators from China and Finland and then assemble them. But now to support the Make In India initiative, the company will start manufacturing and assembling them locally for the domestic market.
The Indian subsidiary of Kone Corporation will initially manufacture a few hundreds of these escalators for the domestic market against a few thousand elevators. The target audience are airports, metro stations, railway stations and shopping malls among others.
The Indian market for escalators and elevators is pegged at about 65,000 to 70,000 units per annum, of which escalators account for 5% of it. Kone India has a market share of 25% in the elevator segment, he said.
“Right now, most of the components are procured locally. We are the only company to manufacture escalators in India, while others are importing and assembling it,” he said.
Kone India is likely to end the calendar year 2023 with a 15% growth over CY2022 and is likely to maintain the same growth target for CY2024.
Mr. Gossain, meanwhile, urged the State governments to implement the Lift Act at the earliest as it was extremely important. Right now, it is implemented only by 11 States including Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Gujarat, Maharashtra and New Delhi, among others.
Talking about exports, he said it constituted about 5-7% of total revenue and it is set to increase with the launch of more products.
Published - December 20, 2023 08:12 pm IST
