| The company inaugurated the first phase of an automotive glass plant in Chennai today. Asahi invested Rs 55 crore in the first phase, and the total investment is expected to go up to Rs 180 crore once the fifth phase is done. |
| The Chennai plant has been started with a capacity of 5 lakh laminated windshields a year, and would serve companies such as Hyundai, Toyota Kirloskar, Ford and Volvo. The company also hopes to use the Chennai plant for exports. |
| Its largest investment, Rs 600 crore, is to go in to an integrated glass plant in Roorkee, Uttaranchal. "Three integrated glass factories is how we would like it to pan out," said Sanjay Labroo, managing director and CEO, Asahi India. |
| The investments have come in the backdrop of a sharp growth in the automotive glass segment which makes up 57 per cent of the Rs 490 crore Asahi's sales. In the current fiscal, the segment has grown at 20-25 per cent, said Labroo. |
| In the previous year, the growth rate exceeded 30 per cent, he added. |
| The sharp growth in automotive glass business notwithstanding, Labroo expects the demand for architectural glass to be dominant in future. He forecasts that automotive glass sales would slip to about 42 per cent of the total sales in five years. |
| The declining importance of float glass would be on account of the popularity of value-added glass for the construction segment. Labroo said that glass has begun to replace other materials in buildings. |
| Glass makes up 20 per cent of the surface area of buildings today against 8 per cent a few years ago, he added. |
| Asahi India is a dominant player in the automotive glass segment. Labroo said that the company's capacity in laminated windshields was 1.8 million a year. The total capacity in the segment in India is 2.2 million windshields a year. |
Top Section
Explore Business Standard