Wipro Lighting to invest Rs 70 crore this year

Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting (WCCL), a business unit of Wipro Ltd which has been adding new variants to its existing product lines, is investing Rs 60-70 crore in the current financial year. The expansion includes adding to existing capacities as well as setting up new plants.

New plants are being set up for the lighting division in Mysore in Karnataka and Baddi in Himachal Pradesh. In Himachal Pradesh, the lighting plant is coming up next to the soap manufacturing plant.

In Mysore, where the company already has a plant manufacturing of bulbs and fluorescent tubes, another unit is being set up to manufacture compact fluorescent lamps.

"The new plants will cater to the needs of our lighting divisions which are growing faster, particularly after the launch of of our modular furniture business almost a year back," said Vineet Agrawal, president, Wipro Consumer Care & Lighting.

Wipro is also increasing the capacity of its soap manufacturing plant at Baddi by putting up a second line and a separate division for backyard integration of finished products.

"We are investing fairly aggressively this year by setting up a new line in Himachal Pradesh (Baddi), largely because soap sale volumes are growing by more than 20 per cent," said Agrawal.

At present, the company has soap manufacturing plants at Amalner in Jalgaon district of Maharashtra, Tumkur in Karnataka and Baddi in Himachal Pradesh. Besides, for lighting the company has plants in Aurangabad (Waluj) and in Mysore.

The company which has also forayed into the wellness segment with the launch of Wipro Sanjeevini (honey and isabgol) currently depends on third-party manufacturers for these products.

Agrawal said Chandrika, the 75-year-old ayurvedic soap brand which Wipro acquired in 2004, has regained the ground it lost to rival brand, Medimix.

"We have done a lot of corrections in the sales and marketing. As a result, we regained market share with the brand growing by 13 per cent last year. The effort would be to sustain the growth," he added.

"Although we have launched Chandrika Amritam, an aroma therapy bathing system, our aim is to stabilise the brand further. Once the brand becomes strong enough, we will look at other extensions," he added. For its other brand Santoor, the company has extended it into talc, face wash and fairness cream.

In the financial year 2006, WCCL contributed Rs 601 crore to the net revenue of Wipro, growing 27 per cent. Gross profit stood at Rs 80.5 crore, up 17 per cent from the profit recorded in financial year 2005.