'The lighting industry is neglected'
The Economic Times (19 August 1999)Thursday, New Delhi

Lighting accounts for 17 per cent of peak load usage of power. Yet, it is not a thrust industry. As world giants step in, Indian majors like Surya Roshni are going strong on modernization and component manufacture with technology transfer from abroad. With Prakash '99, the quadrennial lighting fair and seminar just a month away, B D Aggarwal, chairman and managing director of Rs 625 crore Surya Roshni explains to E Jayashree Kurup why they have been able to survive while many Indian majors like Bengal Lamps went under.

What is the composition of the Indian lighting industry? About 50 per cent of glow lamp segment the industry is still in the unorganised and unbranded sector. Of the organised sector, Philips has 39 per cent market share, Surya 20 per cent , General Electric 11 per cent, Osram (ECE) 7 per cent, Crompton 6 per cent, Wipro and Bajaj 7 per cent each and others 2 per cent . In the last 5-7 years 15 Indian lamps companies have closed down.

In the fluorescent tubes Philips has 30 per cent of the market share, Surya 24 per cent, Crompton 12 per cent, GE 10, Osram 8, Bajaj 5, Wipro 4 and others 7 per cent.

With so many multinationals in the Indian market, what strategies has Surya adopted to survive?
We realised in the '80s that to survive as lights people we have to go for backward integration. As a result we went in for technical collaboration with European majors. The recently opened ribbon glass plant is based on technology and machinery supplied by Dema Glass of the UK for manufacture of GLS and tubular glass shells. We feel this plant position will position us among Asia's leading players, with a production capacity of 400 million pieces a year.

Has the profile of the Indian consumer changed over the years?
In the last 5 to 7 years consumers have become more focussed and demand specific products. The latest trend is for energy saving lamps. Electronic chokes have been important in the reduction of size. Now technology has made it more compact, efficient and cheaper too.

However, incentives for production of energy saving light sources are just not there. And incentives to manufacture and also to use these technologies among government organisations and institutions would result in enormous amounts of energy being saved. But in India, the GLS segment still dominates and there is as yet no technology which can make yellow light energy saving.

Does that mean that there has been no real development of the market?
About 12 years ago it became compulsory for lamps to have an ISI mark. This has resulted in the actual quality of GIS improvement . In the western world with much less sunlight than us, lighting is a very significant part of life. Here too increasingly in the workplaces artificial lighting is becoming very important.

Research and development have led to technological improvements and new components have increased lamp life. These have been in response to consumer demands. For instance, in the '80s there was a period when even at parties the topic of conversation was the short life of lamps. We took note of this and started a conscious process of R&D were we attempted to improve quality and also brought down the prices.

Were these international trends as well?
These were in the line with international developments and were translated into Indian conditions. Now we have diversified into other segments in the industry. We manufacture a lot of halogens for cars.

Is Surya Roshni just an Indian brand or are you marketing it abroad too?
The Surya brand is present in South Africa, Sri Lanka and Dubai. We have a 10 percent market share in South Africa and 15-20 per cent in Sri Lanka. In international market we score on quality plus price. China is a big competitor but their quality is not preferred. Over the last 2-3 months we have started exporting glass components from our ribbon glass plant. In fact, almost 10 per cent of our production is exported.

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