ABB's Spiesshofer upbeat on India biz, sees double-digit growth

ABB is betting big on the Indian market and expects its India business to grow at double digits, more than the country's GDP growth.

In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Ulrich Spiesshofer, Global CEO, ABB, assured that India is a long-term play for the company, adding that there was a substantial pickup in orders especially from the infra space. He expects more infra projects like the North East Agra power project. “ABB is ideally positioned to really work with India on its competitiveness, on its automation solutions,” he said. 

Below is the verbatim transcript of Ulrich Spiesshofer’s interview to Archana Shukla on CNBC-TV18. Q: What is your view on the demand pick-up seen in India going forward? A: If you look at India, we look at India from a very long-term perspective. It is one of the largest economies in the world. It is one of the longest term activities of ABB. We are in India since more than 100 years serving customers; we have our offering across our entire portfolio, I see India in the following way. If you look at the infrastructure and utility side there are significant investments coming in and there are significant projects going on. You know that we are at a moment completing the North-East Agra project where we bring 6 GigaWatt of power from the Himalaya, hydro-power down in the central region of Agra. That project is going very successful. I expect more of these activities to come in the future and we are strongly positioned in that field. On the industry side, the productivity and the Make in India are programmes that Prime Minister Modi has launched. I can only support that fully. ABB is ideally positioned to really work with India on its competitiveness, on its automation solutions which I think is very strong. If I look at a transport sector where it is the Indian railway or their ambition to go into electrical vehicles India has a very steep ambition for 2030 on electrical vehicles. Altogether we are long-term partnered and I think we are ideally positioned. Q: Most of what you have spoken is from the public investments space so is that what is picking up. Do you in the near-term see any private investment pick up and how is the scenario as far as large scale orders are concerned? A: If you look at the private sector with our robotic business we gain orders in the automotive space and also in the electronics area. We are participating in buildings in India with our home electrification offering. So, it is a mixed between a large government driven and more private customers and industrial business-to-business (B2B) customer driven consumption. Altogether I would characterise at the moment the situation that some of the segments are very nicely prospering and going in right direction. Some others at the moment have been subdued but we have been around for many years, we are not getting nervous about it, we will stay in India. Q: ABB India revenues have roughly hovered around USD 1.3-1.5 billion. Where do you see it going lets us say in the three to four years time frame and if you also talk of the CAPEX that you would be lining up for the Indian market? A: If you take ABB in India it has really been a success story, we have localised a lot of our activities. We have deployed significant capital to have world class factories in India serving the local market. We will continue that pattern. I would expect our India business to grow ahead of the economy and since the Indian economy is one with the highest growth rates in the world Sanjeev Sharma needs to do a good job to grow very strongly. Q: How much would exports contribute that in the next three to four years time? I remember two years back when we had spoke you had given a big target as far as export ramp up was concerned? A: Given the situation of the markets are around Asia and Middle-East is at the moment, Middle East is subdued in certain spending and we have not really achieved very thing that we what to do but we have put momentum, we have good capabilities to supply chain set up so this remains the priority in the future to get India as a stronger going as an export hub. The quality coming out of the country is increasing every day I am really proud of what our India team as achieved already. Q: USD 3 billion of share buyback is what you have announced, you also went through the same process a couple of years ago. India was not part of it, this time would India be part of that share buyback? A: The way we run the program is it is related to ABB stock overall to global stock. So, India we will not buyback stock in ABB India.