No immediate need to hike prices after GST: Eureka Forbes

Shapoorji Pallonji group company Eureka Forbes, known for its Aquaguard brand of water purifiers, believes there is no immediate need to hike prices of its products after the roll out of the Goods & Service Tax (GST).

“In the long-term, it (GST) is going to be helpful, it is going to be positive. There may not be an immediate hike in prices after GST”, said Shashank Sinha, associate vice president (marketing) at Eureka Forbes.

Eureka Forbes is the market leader in water purifiers with a share of 67 per cent. It also has a dominant presence in vacuum cleaners and air purifiers.

“GST introduction will not impact the availability of our products. In fact, we are expanding our portfolio and unveiling new products with new technologies”, he said.

The GST rate for water purifiers is pegged at 18 per cent while for vacuum cleaners and air purifiers, the tax rate is 28 per cent.

Eureka Forbes is growing 15-20 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) in water purifiers and hopes to log the same level of growth in this fiscal. Sinha declined to reveal the turnover of Eureka Forbes citing that it was not a public listed company. The market for water purifiers in the country is estimated at Rs 3,500 crore and it is growing 12-15 per cent y-o-y. The water purifiers market has 148 advertised brands but a handful of serious players are operating in this space .

The company has four manufacturing facilities at Dehradun, Bhimtal (Uttarakhand), Baddi (Himachal Pradesh) and Bengaluru. It exports the range of water purifiers made at these locations to 40 countries.