Kurlon forays into spring mattress biz

Kurlon Ltd, the Rs 270 crore mattress maker, has diversified into spring mattresses. The company, which once had a joint venture with DuPont of US for spring mattresses, could not achieve the desired success and called off the JV a few years ago. Now, it has launched spring mattresses, designed and developed by its in-house R&D division.

The company has set up a new manufacturing plant at Peenya in Bangalore for an investment of Rs 2.5 crore to produce spring mattresses. It has imported machinery from the US and Europe to produce 3,000 spring mattresses per day. It also imports a portion of the spring wires made of steel and also procure locally.

Said T Sudhakar Pai, Managing Director, Kurlon Ltd, "In developed countries, 90 per cent of the households use spring mattresses for sleep purpose. In India the concept of spring mattresses is yet to catch on. Of late, many Indians returning to the country after staying in the US for a long time are opting for spring mattresses. We lacked the product in our portfolio and seeing the growing demand for the product, we have entered the segment."

According to Pai, the use of spring mattresses for sleep did not catch up in India as it was considered a luxury product by many and also the government levied a very high excise duty of 80 per cent on it about 10 years ago.

However, the trend is changing as the duty has been cut to 60 per cent. The software engineers in particular who return from abroad are going in for spring mattresses, he said.

Kurlon, which presently has a 65 per cent marketshare in the Rs 350-400 crore branded mattresses segment, is aiming at capturing the market in the spring mattress segment too.

"We have just entered the market and the initial response to our mattresses has been very encouraging. Depending on the market response over the next one year, we will further expand our capacity," Pai said.

Kurlon is presently transforming itself from 'sleep comfort' products maker to 'home comfort' products maker. Early this year it launched furniture and home furnishing products.

As part of its diversified growth strategy, Kurlon is getting to ready to enter kitchen products segment.

"We are working on launching our branded products for the kitchen like Italian modular kitchens and kitchen cabinets. We will be launching our products within the next one year," Pai said. The company is aiming at a 40 per cent growth in the current fiscal.