German tool maker eyes agri sector

Banks on mechanisation of agriculture in India.

Outdoor power tools maker Andreas Stihl is banking on the mechanisation of agriculture in India, especially in the tea-growing areas. The company opened on Tuesday its India office in Pune.

The Euro 2-billion German major is also eying the government sector as well as efforts by different local authorities in India to put in place disaster management systems.

The company plans to sell in India outdoor power equipment and tools such as chainsaws, cut off saws, weed cutters, hedge trimmers, mist blowers and tea pruners.

It will also sell infrastructure-related products such as concrete cutter and steel cutters. It has already appointed 30 dealers in the country so far and plans to expand this network to 100 in the next one year.

Andreas Stihl Pvt Ltd, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Stihl Group in India, will import the products from the group's plants across the world, and offer the aftersales service through a team of engineers in India.

Hans Peter Stihl, chairman of the supervisory board of Stihl Germany, told mediapersons that India could become a major market in the medium term with its massive potential demand for products that mechanised agriculture, tea plantations and landscaping will benefit from.

"India is one of the world's largest tea producers and we would like to see our outdoor power equipment contributing to an improvement in productivity of its agriculture sector," he said.

Pramod Vadipally, company's country manager for India, said the key segments to be targeted in the non-agri segment would be professional landscapers, and civil contractors in retail and the defence department, railways, public works department in addition to organisations connected in the disaster management and rescue operations.

Stihl said the company may consider assembly of its products in the second stage and manufacturing possibility eventually.

He said the critical volume for the company to decide about setting up a manufacturing plant would be 100,000 units of sale. He however did not give estimates of when this volume would be reached.

Vadipally said the estimates for India sales revenue would be worked out "once the operations here settle."