| Buoyed by the growth in the Indian textile sector, especially after the phasing out of quotas, Tokyo- based Juki Machinery Private Limited, a global leader in industrial sewing machines, plans to set up its manufacturing unit in India in the next two or three years. |
| Juki is studying the feasibility of setting up its plants in the country. The company is scouting for places in the four metropolitan cities namely Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. |
| The company is also planing to introduce its home-use sewing machines and Surface Mount Technology (SMT) for assembling of Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) in the Indian market. |
| The company already has seven sales and marketing offices in the country. Recently, it opened a sales office in the knitwear city of Tirupur. |
| "India is our second largest importer, next to China. Around 20,000 garment units in the country are making use of our products. Hence, we plan to have our presence in India," Noriaki Saito, managing director, Juki, told Business Standard. |
| During the last calendar year, Juki sold more than 35,000 sewing machines in India and was expecting an increase of 30 per cent in its sales volume in 2006, Saito added. |
| Tsutomu Yoshida, executive officer of the company, said that the global market size for industrial sewing machines was estimated at $2 billion and Juki enjoyed a market share of more than 40 per cent globally. The company has a market share of 25 per cent in India. |
| Commenting on the pricing and delivery schedule, he said that their delivery time ranged between 30 and 60 days and the cost was three times higher than those of its competitors. |
| The company is planning to conduct an exhibition of its products and machineries in Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore in order to create more awareness about its products. The exhibitions are slated to be held during July - October 2006. |
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