Volvo Construction Equipment (Volvo CE), part of the Volvo Group, is betting big on India for growing its equipment business. The company, which has just launched ‘Made in India’ excavators, is actively exploring the opportunities to launch backhoe loader in Indian market, a top company executive said.
“Presently, Volvo does not have backhoe loader in its portfolio for India. This is one product that is missing in our basket. However, we are presently studying the Indian market for launching this product. We have no definite timeframe to bring it here and take a decision at an appropriate time,” Vincent Tan, president of Volvo CE, Asia Region said.
Backhoe loaders are used for a wide variety of tasks like construction, small demolitions, and light transportation of building materials, powering building equipment, digging holes/excavation, landscaping, breaking asphalt and paving roads among others.
With road building and large commercial and residential real estate projects expected to continue in 2012 and a possible revival of mining segment next year, Volvo expects to clock a sales growth of 20 per cent in India, Tan said. A M Muralidharan, managing director of Volvo India Pvt Ltd said, “We have just completed an investment programme of Rs 90 crore in our Bangalore plant to manufacture excavators to meet the demand from the domestic market. Plans are in place to ramp up excavator production significantly next year, and this new development will see factory capacity tripling in 2012.”
He said the company is optimistic of growth in India as large number of road, highway projects are coming up in the country. It is also looking at commercial and residential real estate projects to rev up its sales in the domestic market. “We have just completed our investment programme involving Rs 90 crore to expand the capacity of our road machinery manufacturing plant and started making 20-tonne excavators for the first time here. This investment is sufficient for us till 2015 and if the market grows more than 20 per cent year on year, we will look at making further expansion,” Muralidharan told Business Standard, on the sidelines of Excon 2011, an international exhibition on construction equipment, here.
Admitting that the ban on mining and export of iron ore in Karnataka and partially in Goa has affected the sales of Volvo CE business in India, Muralidharan said they have compensated for the loss from other segments.
Like road building machinery sales.
