Exide to double capacity in 2 years

Battery major Exide Industries Ltd is looking to double its overall production capacity within two years and is on course to achieving revenues of $1 billion (about Rs 4,000 crore) by next year.

The company sees the overall product mix also changing from a dominant automotive segment to similar growth from the industrial sector business.

The Chairman of Exide Industries, Mr S.B. Ganguly, said “the company achieved revenues of Rs 3,300 crore last year and expects to close this fiscal with about Rs 3,500 crore. Given the current momentum and business prospects, we are poised to achieve Rs 4,000-crore revenues by next year.”

“In fact, we would have managed to achieve this milestone by this year itself had we stretched a bit. But with major expansion plans now under way, it would now take us one more year to achieve this,” he said.

Referring to the business, he said from 60:40, with the automotive sector dominating, this mix is gradually poised to shift to 50:50 within couple of years due to demand from multiple industrial applications.

During his visit to Hyderabad, Mr Ganguly said “the domestic demand is huge and continues to grow significantly and this is engaging most of the company’s attention. There are no signs of any let up of this demand for us to look at tapping overseas markets.”

However, the company is also in the process of consolidating its overseas presence through marketing channels in the US, Australia and the UK.

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