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| Global designers to style Wipro's furniture range |
| Bibhu Ranjan Mishra / Chennai/ Bangalore Jul 24, 2009, 00:38 IST |
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Company prepares to take on international brands
The premium furniture market in India, dominated by global brands like Herman Miller, Steelcase and Haworth, is set to see an Indian company, in the form of Wipro, aggressively trying to find a space in this segment by roping in international designers.
During the last couple of months, the company roped in international designers including Eric Chan and Tim Wallace to cater to the Indian customers who want international range of products. While the company has already launched the Startline range of products designed by London-based Tim Wallace, the company is planning to launch premium chairs designed by Eric Chan, a New York-based designer, in the next couple of months.
“We recently launched a new furniture range designed by international designer Tim Wallace. What is encouraging is that within a week of its launch we bagged two large orders from two global firms. This (premium range) will pitch us against Herman Miller, Steelcase or Haworth,” Vineet Agrawal, president of Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting said.
The modular furniture market in India, estimated to be about Rs 600 crore, is dominated by bigger players like Godrej and BP (earlier Blow Plast). The market size of the international range of premium furniture is estimated to be worth about Rs 70 crore, and is primarily catered to by foreign players.
Agrawal said, roping in international designers would have many advantages for the company. “While we already have a popular range of furniture including chairs, the new range will give us an alternate prospect. This will enable us to capture newer trends happening abroad apart from providing access to a lot of international suppliers not known to us earlier,” he said.
Presently, the company’s range of office furniture are being designed by designers from the National Institute of Design. Agrawal said though the look and feel of the premium ranges would be the same as any international brands, the customers could get a cost advantage upto 30 per cent over the international products, based on the configuration.
Wipro entered the furniture segment almost four years ago. The furniture and lighting segment combinedly contribute close to 18 per cent of the revenues of Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting. Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting business grew 7 per cent YoY to Rs 546 crore in the quarter ended June 30, 2009.
Agrawal said, the company was importing the central beam required for its Startline furniture range from an Austrian firm. Presently, the company manufactures the premium range of furniture designed by international designers at its Aurangabad plant. The chairs are being manufactured at its plant in Chennai.
Wipro’s commercial lighting and furniture business is seeing flat growth for the last couple of quarters because of the global economic slowdown. However, the company said its consumer care products including flagship brand Santoor continue to do well. In the quarter-ended June 30, Santoor grew 18 per cent to become the number one soap brand in South India. Besides, the Ayurvedic soap Chandrika grew 31 per cent in the quarter.
The business of Unza, the Singapore-based FMCG firm earlier acquired by the company, grew 13 per cent during the quarter with much of the growth coming from Vietnam which grew 45 per cent followed by China 20 per cent and Indonesia 12 per cent.
Consumer Care and Lighting business accounted for about 9 per cent of Wipro’s overall revenue of Rs 6,274 crore during the quarter.
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