Brita to make India APAC manufacturing hub

After consolidating its presence in the over Rs 1,000-crore Indian market of water purifiers, Germany's Brita GmbH is planning to make the country a hub for its Asia Pacific operations.

"As part of synergising our global operations with India, we are looking at making the country a manufacturing and sourcing hub for exports of Brita products to the Asia Pacific market," Uwe Belz, technical director & executive board member, Brita Group, told PTI.

The company operates in India through a 50:50 joint venture with Shriram Group. As part of its plans, it would buy the products of the JV company - Usha Shriram Brita - and sell them to Asia Pacific nations like Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore under its own label.

The company plans to dispatch the first lot of water purification systems to the Asia Pacific region in the next three months, Belz said.

Usha Shriram Brita is the only manufacturer of table-top water purifiers and has a 12% market share in the overall purification systems market, which is covered by three major players, including Aquaguard.

"With Brita's export plans, Usha Brita would have to considerably increase its manufacturing capacity to cater to the enhanced demand. We would double our manufacturing capacity to 2 lakh units in the next 2 years," Subodh Verma, MD, Usha Shriram Brita, said.

He said nearly 50% of the enhanced capacity would be sold in existing market while the remaining 50,000 units would be sold in the Asia Pacific region.