Havells gears up for smart city projects

Firm plans to develop new technology-driven lighting products such as wirelessly controlled fans and lights

Electrical goods maker Havells India plans to capitalise on government's smart city projects by developing new technology-driven lighting products and home appliances.

"Smart city project has a good potential... There are lot of possibilities for us to do good business in cities," Havells India CMD Anil Rai Gupta told PTI.

Elaborating on how it is preparing to tap these opportunities, he said: "We are looking at connecting our products through technology."

For instance, he said, home automation is an area of focus where fan and light sources could be wirelessly controlled.

Gupta added, the company was working on partnerships to procure software and network support from global firms for smart city projects.

Already, rival Bajaj Electrical had announced to form a JV with Cisco for smart city projects where the later would provide software applications and networking aspects while former would be in active services and fittings of radio frequency, video display, cameras and street lightings.

"Those kind of partnerships we are working on, but not in our product category. The company has technological capabilities for its products," Gupta said.

The company is also betting big on light-emitting diode (LED) products category and is targeting around Rs 600 crore revenue from the category in two years.

"Last fiscal, 24 per cent revenue of the lighting segment came from LED and this fiscal it would be around 38 per cent," he said.

Havells is also planning to consolidate its position in the switchgear market with its two brands Havells and Standard. The company recently launched its first made in India MCB (Miniature Circuit Breaker) under the Havells brand.

"Presently, domestic switchgear market is around Rs 2,000 crore and Havells has a share of Rs 400 crore," he informed.

The company is targeting Rs 650 crore revenue from this segment by the end of FY17 by ramping up production 1.5 times in two years.

Havells, which generates around 40 per cent of its revenue from international business is expecting the contribution from the domestic markets to go up.

"In the international markets, growth would be smaller compared with domestic market, unless we do some more acquisitions abroad. May be this could go up to 65 per cent next year," he added.

In FY13-14, Havells India had a consolidated revenue of Rs 8,185.80 crore.