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Homegrown inverter maker Su-Kam Power Systems Limited is planning to set up a non banking finance company (NBFC) to create a sizeable market for sub-Rs 7,000 priced inverters targeting low income families in both urban and rural setting.
Company founder and CEO Kunwer Sachdev said though there was a huge unmet need for smaller capacity inverters among the low income households, this segment remained untapped as there was no financing facility available for them to pay for this particular product in installments (EMIs).
“To tap this segment of the market you have to make a financing facility available to them,” Sachdev said. The company would earmark Rs 10 crore apart from raising another Rs 10 crore from banks to start the inverter financing business exclusively for this products.
The inverter market is largely growing at the upper end with capacities of 500 KW and above with establishments now keen to have a back-up to run systems like elevators in times of unforeseen power outages, according to him.
The initiative would help in tapping the business potential even at the lower end of the market, he said. While uninterrupted power supply still remains a distant dream in many parts of the country, electricity requirement for lighting and other uses is being felt more than ever among the low income households due to children’s education etc, he said.
Though Su-Kam is identified with inverter brand, its battery business is bigger.
According to Sachdev, of the Rs 1,200-crore revenues expected during the current financial year, Rs 500 crore would come from the battery business followed by Rs 400 crore from the inverter sales.
Though the upcoming rooftop solar power business is expected to generate around Rs 300 crore revenues in the current year, it would become the mainstay of the company’s future operations, he said.
Sachdev said they would be looking at going public in a couple of years as they would require funds to expand the solar power business through various models.
