Domestic paint makers like Asian Paints, Berger and Kansai Nerolac are going in for the fifth round of price rise in decorative paints this financial year. The planned one to two per cent rise will take the overall rise in this financial year to 12 per cent.
Asian Paints Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer P M Murty said the rise had been driven by runaway input costs. “Commodity inflation has been severe. This has compelled players to take price hikes to mitigate cost pressures,” he said.
Raw materials account for 60 per cent of the total cost of production of a paint company. Key inputs that go into the making of paints include titanium dioxide, vegetable oils and monomers (used to make emulsions). All these inputs have become costlier by 10-12 per cent in the last one year.
“Price hikes that firms have taken this fiscal,” said Anuj Jain, vice-president, sales & marketing, Kansai Nerolac, “have been in line with the commodity inflation witnessed.”
Seventy per cent of the Rs 17,000-crore Indian paints market is made up of decorative paints. The balance is industrial paints.
Though the impact of input cost pressures is felt in both segments, it is difficult for industrial paint makers to take price rises because of long-term contracts that they get into with customers. The case is not so with decorative paints. Decorative here means the market that addresses household and architectural requirements.
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Of the raw materials, the escalating price of titanium dioxide has been the most worrisome. According to Hemant Somani, head, marketing, Akzo Nobel India, supply-side constraints are pushing up the prices.
The Indian paints industry imports 50 to 60 per cent of its titanium dioxide requirements. “During the economic slowdown, a number of units manufacturing titanium dioxide closed down. Following the economic revival, however, demand for the raw material has been growing, leading to a supply-side crunch. This is what is pushing up the price of titanium dioxide. The situation is likely to be tight till additional capacities don’t come on stream. This won’t be till next year,” said a Mumbai-based commodity analyst.