NE BUSINESS BUREAU
AHMEDABAD, Sept 25
Tiles major Asian Granito India Limited (AGIL) is banking big on the ‘Bharat’ markets to drive the sales growth post unlocking of the economy. The company is confident to drive the volume growth on the back of its strong presence and demand recovery in the rural and semi urban markets. The lower spread of COVID in rural areas, improvement in repairs and renovation activities, good monsoon, and better sowing of Kharif crops, agriculture reforms are likely to drive the growth, a release said.
Rural, Semi-Urban, Tier II, and Tier III towns contributed over 70% of the company’s sales in FY20. The company expects sales from these markets to improve further in the current fiscal year to offset the slack in demand from metros and megacities. Metros and Megacities contribute less than 30% of the company’s sales, the release added.
Kamlesh Patel, Chairman, and Managing Director, Asian Granito India Ltd said, “Despite challenging economic and business environment company delivered a good performance. The company’s strong presence in the rural and tier-II cities focused on the progressive middle class of the country and good export demand helped the company. While demand from metros and megacities has taken a hit post-COVID, demand from rural and semi-urban markets have remained intact. Post-COVID, there is a new demand emerging from the rural market as the migration of labours from urban to rural resulted in the need for home repairs and renovation. We have observed that budget and economic tiles have seen good demand with construction and repair activity taking full pace in the rural market. Green shoots are visible in the demand especially from rural & semi-urban markets, fewer cases in the rural areas, better employment prospects have further brightened up the prospects of the recovery in rural markets.”
The company has taken many initiatives aimed at strengthening its team including worker & employees and their families, dealer-distributor network, business partners.
With a focus on Vocal for Local, the company has recently launched “ATMANIRBHAR PROGRAM’ to further strengthen its presence in the rural and semi-urban markets. “For the first time in India that such a digital marketing campaign was launched by a ceramic company. Through this AGL has taken this new initiative to let people earn by working from home and become its business partners for growth. The programme is aimed at reducing marketing costs and increase profitability while generating employment opportunities in rural India. The pilot project was launched in Idar and Bhavnagar in Gujarat and the company aims to launch this pan India in the coming time”, said Mukesh Patel, Managing Director, Asian Granito India Ltd.
Anti-China sentiments and reduction in gas prices are likely to be game-changer for the Indian ceramic industry. China dominates in the World ceramics market covering about 55-60 percent of the global market. India ranks second and produces 12.90% of the global ceramic tiles output.
Prafulla Gattani, Executive Director, AGL Global Trade Pvt Ltd said, “Currently many countries are avoiding purchases from China such as the US, European countries, Middle Eastern countries and they are turning to India. With anti-china sentiments across the World and the USA imposing heavy duties on tiles from China we anticipate the huge export potential for Indian companies. The recent reduction in the gas price will also make Indian tiles more competitive in the world market and will be a major catalyst in the export business. The move will reduce the total costs by 3-5% and help improve the profitability of the overall sector in a challenging environment”.
