With renewed focus on regaining its marketshare in the high-horse power (hp) segment, which it had lost to global companies, tractor maker Escorts Limited is gearing up to launch four models.
Speaking to reporters after launching the company’s two new high-power models — Farmtrac 6060 (60 hp) and 6065 (65 hp) — in Chennai on Friday, S Sridhar, chief executive officer of Escorts, said the company will launch one range every six months.
“The high-hp tractor segment is witnessing a good growth and we were the leaders in this segment earlier, which we want to regain now,” he said, adding there was an informal consolidation of land holdings among blood relatives happening at the farm level in states like Punjab, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.
Presently, rolling out around 200 units across models every month, Escorts will gradually increase the numbers in the coming months and hopes to sell around 10,000 units during the next financial year.
The company, which follows the October-to-September accounting year, sold 63,000 tractors last year. Sridhar, however, declined to share the sales figures for the present year.
The company presently has an installed capacity of 100,000 units a year, while its present production is 75,000 units. The company will look at capacity expansion after two years once it reaches optimum utilisation of the existing capacity, Sridhar said.
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According to Shenu Agarwal, head (marketing), Escorts, added that the share of the small tractor segment (below 35 hp) has been slowing from 2011-12, while the mid-size tractor (35-50 hp) segment is also expected to be stagnant during 2012-13 and could fall during 2013-14.
“The 50 hp-plus segment, which had a market share of 6 per cent in 2003-04, doubled in 2011-12 and is set to increase to 15 per cent and 23 per cent during 2012-13 and 2013-14 respectively,” Agarwal said.
The Indian tractor market saw sale of around 525,000 units last year.
According to Sridhar, the company ships out around 2,000 tractors to countries that are similar to India. “Our wholly-owned subsidiary in Poland has already sold around 1,000 tractors of 100 hp in Europe,” he added.
Stating that the tractor industry would see stagnant market conditions this financial year, Sridhar said the market would grow from the next year and Escorts would like to be comfortably positioned to cash in on that.
On the recent reports about the promoters/promoters group planning to increase the stake in the company, Sridhar said, “Promoters increasing the stake in the company is a sign of confidence.”