Awaiting the Great Nano Flood of 2010

Potential consumer segments and its conversion to Nano market

Last year Bihar faced flood that it hadn’t seen for fifty years and no one had any clue as what measure would be required to curtail it. yesterday Tata motors launched it people car- nano, which will be available to public by mid this year. Government, public & private institutions seem to be unaware and under-prepared for the NANO flood, which will grip the nation 2010 onwards.

Though nano potential market in India has been sized by many investment firms, but as the product itself is evolutionary, so will evolve its customers. In a country where public transportation has been never been emphasized on the potential is enormous. India young population is filled with such potential, we at the potential buyers which will come into being once Nano hits the market.

Nano is most likely to emerge as second car of choice for the family, where even housewives would demand, from grocery shopping to mall shopping, Nano is going to emerge as the transporting alternative for shopping escapades of upper-class Indian housewives and middle-class families which have long been waiting for second cheap alternative.
A large number of collage going crowd which till now ply on two-wheeler ranging from Rs 50,000 to 1Lac. Soon, a large number of them would be turning towards Nano, this conversion would further flood not only the road but already cramped educational institutions, which may have to invest in parking lots than on labs.

Semi-urban areas are another two-wheeler bastion, which will get dismantled by introduction of Nano car. More are more people are likely to dump three-wheeler autos and expensive SUVs for tata nano, which for some-time will have smooth run in the narrow lanes of small cities. But,

US Worrying Indian Auto Components Manufacturers

Indian auto component manufacturing is going through tough times. Domestic demand has fallen and exports have dried up, manufacturers are finding it hard to stay afloat. As per a new estimate by Federation of Indian Micro, Small & Medium Enterprise (FISME), some 4,000 ancillary units are on verge of closure making 200,000 jobs redundant.

With the big three American automotive giants in dock, things are looking bleak for auto component exporters. If two of the big three file for the bankruptcy then many of Indian OEM players would be left in lurch without any payment for their exports. General Motors, biggest export destination for Indian auto components account for USD 500 mn worth of exports. If it goes down, it won’t just hit the small players it will hit big players of the Indian auto components market.

ECGC( Export Credit Guarantee Corp) has already frozen credit risk insurance cover to all auto component manufacturers who supply components to big three in US. This has aggravated the problems of component manufacturers specially the small manufacturers who can’t take risks like large firms and are at inevitable loss of business. According to FISME, almost 25% of SMEs in auto component manufacturing have NPAs and this is expected to increase to 50% in near future. The fact that these SMEs account for almost 50% of India’s total auto components exports speaks about the troubled times ahead for the industry.

Domestic India automobile sales plummet, Exports provide some relief

India’s automobile sales plummeted in November, seeing one of the biggest falls, even as exports spiked by 62% during the month. According to the latest figures released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), tighter lending by banks and slowing economy have led to auto sales plunging by 18% in the domestic market in the month of November as against the figures in the same month last year.

Category wise, commercial vehicle sales almost halved (50%) in November to 20,637 units from 40,879 units in the same month last year, while passenger car sales dropped comparatively less (20%) to 83,059 units from 1,03,031 units in the same month last year. Demand for passenger cars in India has fell in four of the past five months.
In the two-wheeler segment, two-wheeler sales fell 15% to 5,67,502 units from 6,65,181 units in the same period last year while motorcycle sales fell 20% to 4,31,171 units as against 5,40,553 units in the corresponding month a year ago.

Exports have however been the saving grace this month, total vehicles exports rising by 62% to 146,337 units in November against 90,398 units in the same month last year, led by passenger vehicles, motorcycles, scooters and three-wheelers. Break up among the export figures show that, passenger car exports rose almost twice at 34,607 units compared with 15,464 units in the year-ago period. Two-wheeler exports jumped 52% in November to 89,245 units compared with 59,041 units in the year-ago period. And motorcycle exports rose a similar 51% to 85,549 units from 56,739 units in the corresponding month 2007.

However experts feel that this is not the right period to gauge the automobile sector’s performance. The picture would be clear only by February- March, as by then some impact of the excise duty cut would have been felt and if financing situation improves, sales could pick up.

The fall in sales in India came as a blow to carmakers who were hoping that emerging markets like India, China, Russia and South America would make up for falling demand in developed markets.

Sales have plunged hugely this year across developed markets like the United States, Japan and Europe, as well as emerging economies like China and Russia, forcing automakers to revisit their plans for developing markets.

What’s Wrong with Tata’s Global Footprint Strategy

Tata aggressive stance of acquiring companies globally and developing global presence has gone wrong. Tatas are now painfully recognizing the fact that they in for more trouble for their overleveraged acquisitions of giant steel and niche automotive player. Tata’s Jaguar & LandRover (JLR) unit has already asked for the £1 Bn of loan from the government, there were also news of Tatas picking up money from the market at higher interest rates to keep its JLR unit afloat. Tata Corus is already on cost cutting spree and has asked Dutch government for its staff realization program.

So, what went wrong with Tata’s strategy of developing Global presence and become a world player in almost every spree of its business?

Tata’s core strategy was evading regional and nation business cycles, to implement this strategy Tatas needed to generate revenue from world over and setup manufacturing units to ratonalise the cost. Tatas made assumption that if business cycle in a country/region goes through trough then its companies can survive on demand and revenue from other regions. Tata never thought what would happen if different regions go into recession simultaneously. The thought of global recession never concurred to Tatas as “decoupling theory” was very popular at that point of time.

The other major mistake that Tatas did was it has been unable to accrue production cost benefit from its takeover. It invested in highly niche automotive companies like JLR, which can’t be produced world over thus production cost are difficult to rationalise. The other acquisition, Corus, runs on thin margin and high costs; Corus hasn’t been able to cut costs yet, though it may be able to do it successfully in future but it is taking toll of Tatas.

Avoiding Unemployment as Poll Issue

Employment has suddenly emerged as the issue that is jolting the confidence of both politicians and businessmen alike. The government once again caught off-guard, is in mood of denial as it did in case of credit crisis and economic slowdown. The government seems to not woken up to the reality or it’s the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who wants to divert the attention by making claims about the economic growth. Mr Singh once again in a summit last week said that India would achieve next year’s growth target of 8%, when a few weeks back they were claiming it would be 7%.

Rising unemployment rate during elections are major embarrassment to any government, UPA recognises this fact and thus avoid any talk on the issue to prevent its escalation in media. The government and PM has kept on making statements about India’s miraculous future growth despite global slowdown. Finance Minister has severely criticized reports on layoff by industry and suggested industry could manage downturn without downsizing. The government has been trying to hush-up the matter. It want to keep the issue of unemployment under carpet to avoid any further jolt to its chances of winning election.

Almost every sector in the industry be it retailing, technology, automotive, textiles and exports are under pressure to shed labour and bring down production to avoid any closure. Government has no business in directly supporting industries in this business cycle, it should have taken steps to boost economic growth but it has even failed on this count.

Textile, Jewellery & Auto-components- Unemployment rises amongst India’s Forex Earners

The global economic slowdown has impacted different sectors with varied degree of severity. Textiles and Gems & Jewellery sector, which are one of the biggest contributor’s of India’s exports earnings, are in shambles. Both the sectors are tied with discretionary consumption of global clientele for their produce thus heavily dependent on global market. With discretionary consumption taking nose dive with economic uncertainty all over the world, consumptions of products likes jewellery and garments have fallen dramatically.

This has direct impact on the economic viability of business units related to these two sectors. As a large number of units in these sectors are small and medium size units and most of the workforce belong to unorganised sector. As the new orders have dried out, a large number of these SME units have shut shops leaving workers in lurch. Around 50,000 works have lost jobs in gems & jewellery industry, which expects job losses to go further. Textile industry also expects to cut 5 lakh employees in next five months. Adding to the woe is auto components industry, which in last few years had become darling of global automotive giants, as automobile industry faces question of declining demand the small components manufactures are already showing door to the contact labourers.

Automotive goes out of gear with drastic sales decline

Until recently, India's market had been racing ahead, posting double-digit growth, spurred by a fast-growing economy that had created a new, affluent group, Butt high borrowing costs and new tough loan conditions as a result of the global credit crunch has hit the economy growth, with the latest sector to face the brunt is the auto industry.

India's domestic car sales fell by 6.6% in October, the fastest drop in more than three years, as consumer loans dried up amid a global credit crunch, even as a festive season failed to revive the auto industry. according to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM). Cumulative vehicle sales growth for the seven months to October stood at 5.64% from 10.07% growth in the April-September period. Earlier this year, SIAM had forecast overall vehicle sales growth of 12-15% for the financial year to March 2009.

Close introspection of the figures released show that, car sales in the domestic market plunged in October with a 6.59% fall to 98,900 cars against 1.05 lakh in the same month last year. Motorcycles sales were down 18.17% to 5.38 lakh against 6.57 lakh last year. Similarly, trucks and buses sales fell 50% to 11,786 vehicles from 23,352 during the same period. Scooters and passenger three-wheelers were the only two segments that posted positive growth of 4.4% and 16%, respectively. Exports also grew 41.16% to 1.44 lakh in October against 1.02 lakh the same month last year.

SIAM will review its sales forecast for the year ending March 31 after the November figures are announced next month. SIAM has already cut its full-year growth forecast to between 8-10% from an earlier estimate of 12-13%.

Automotive Industry in India - India's automotive industry, produces 1.5 mn vehicles annually, and is worth $34 bn a year, contributing 5% of the country's GDP.

Domestic automobile sales grows marginally in September

Half yearly (Apr-Sep) Sales also rise

Domestic vehicle sales show marginal increase in sales in both September as well as half year ended September. The pre-festival season sales for the automobile industry showed that most segments recording a marginal increase due to increased marketing initiatives, coupled with inventory push. As per the figures released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), domestic passenger car sales in the country increased by 2.8% to 108,823 units during September 2008, as compared to 1,05,822 units in the year-ago month, while motorcycle sales rose by 15.2% to 632,369 units, as against 548,816 units in the corresponding month a year ago. Total two-wheeler sales in September also soared by 14.5% at 7,78,424 units, compared with 6,79,766 units in the same month last year. Commercial vehicle sales, however, decreased marginally in last month to 42,698 units from 43,091 units in the year-ago period.

A company wise breakup of the sales figures show that companies such as Hyundai, Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) and Hero Honda posted impressive growth in wholesale dispatches to dealers as they tried to push inventory for the Diwali and Navaratri festivals. Boosted by a healthy demand for its i10 model, Hyundai Motor India (HMIL) reported 23% growth for September, selling 22,311 units in the domestic market. M&M also reported an upswing in sales, registering 31% growth by selling more than 16,000 units of Scorpio, Bolero and other models. Demand for Logan, a product jointly manufactured by M&M and Renault, however, faltered as sales slipped by nearly 20% compared with those in the same period last year. Skoda Auto sold 1,213 units, recording growth of 34% against sales of 900 units in September 2007. Sales were generally helped by the Fabia hatchback. Maruti-Suzuki, the country’s biggest car-maker, however posted dismal growth of 2.5% for the month, selling 64,682 units in the domestic market.

Among companies with decline in sales, Tata Motors, posted a decline of almost 9% in domestic sales as a ramp-up in production of its new Indica Vista marred growth. The company sold 16,586 units of passenger vehicles during the month as against 18,216 units in the same period last year. General Motors posted a decline of 10% for the month under review, selling 5,154 units as against 5,751 units in the year-ago period. Honda Siel Cars India also saw a 45% drop in sales at 3,104 units compared with 5,674 units, mainly owing to a halt in production of the outgoing City model, which was replaced by a new model that was launched in the last week of September.

In the two-wheeler segment, market leader Hero Honda extended its lead over rival Bajaj Auto, recording a 22% rise in sales at 3.85 lakh units compared with 3.14 lakh units in the corresponding month last year. Second placed Bajaj Auto sold 2.18 lakh units, reported 6% growth. Meanwhile, TVS Motors, reported rise of 16% in the domestic market, selling 1.19 lakh units last month as against 1.02 lakh units in the same month last year.

For the half year to September, domestic passenger vehicles sales remained marginally high; car sales in April-September recorded a 5.39% increase at over six lakhs units despite the increase in interest rates on auto loans and commodity prices which kept many consumers away from buying vehicles. The sales of commercial vehicles during April-September remained challenging as medium and heavy commercial vehicle declined marginally 1.57% at 1.15 lakh units. As banks remained cautious in lending and credit became difficult to obtain, the demand of heavy commercial vehicles reduced. In contrast, light commercial vehicles recorded a robust 10% growth at 1.06 lakh units. Taking advantage of last year’s low volume base, two wheeler sales remained on a healthy track. Scooters sales grew 7.24% at 5.6 lakh units, motorcycles were up 12% at 30.63 lakh units, Mopeds grew by 6.05% and electric two-wheelers segment grew by 56.14%. Half yearly data ended September also showed production growth of 12.70% over similar period last year, which is higher than last year's growth in this period.

India’s CAPEX to drop significantly in 2008-09

In early ominous signs of things to come, a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) study has estimated that the capital expenditure (capex) in India by corporates may slow down by more than 30% in 2008-09. This expected drop in capex comes after four consecutive years of growth at more than 40%. As per the report, capex figures are expected to touch Rs 173,173 cr in 2008-09, drastically lower than the Rs 245,107 cr raised by companies in 2007-08.

In the last financial year, one of the key drivers of growth in capex was the Rs 442,000 cr worth of capital inflows of which 37% was in foreign debt, 27% was equity market-related inflows, 14% was net FDI and the balance 22% in other hybrid inflows. Major reasons for the drop is obvious the difficult of companies in raising fund overseas in the last six months, due to the global credit turmoil, following the sub-prime credit crisis in the US. The other major contributor viz. the local equity market has also been in doldrums in the past six months, with IPOs either not getting the required response or being postponed due to fear of under subscription. High inflation and a spate of interest rates hikes, has also led to slowdown in investment plans announced by industries?

Over the last three years, investments were made primarily in the automobile, cement, oil and gas, power, steel and telecom sectors. However, most of these sectors are unlikely to go for fresh expansion in the coming years on account of ongoing recession and price freeze by the government to control inflation. The cement, steel and sugar sectors are chief examples of industries that have been caught between rising input costs and disproportionate increase in realisation on account of price controls. The projected downside risk to growth in 2008-2009 has increased due to uncertain global conditions, primarily because of volatility in oil prices and capital markets.

However with India getting the waiver at the NSG, the future looks bright for the capital goods industries, which could prop up the capex figure with their investments. Even telecom sector could provide a boost with the advent of 3G services in India and the additional requirement of infrastructure for the services.

Automotive Engineering Offshore activity gaining ground in India

India is steadily gaining ground in almost all kind of outsourcing and offshoring services. Automotive engineering offshore activity is also gaining ground. Currently automotive offshoring has been a small component of engineering offshoring activity in India. As per one of the estimation global engineering offshoring activity amounts to $10-15 bn and India accounts for just around 12% of this market. The global offshore engineering spend is expected to grow to anything between USD150-225 Bn by 2020 and India could have around 20-25% share of this industry. Automotive offshoring is expected to contribute a big chunk of this engineering offshore pie.

As per another recent survey by Frost & Sullivan, Indian automotive engineering service outsourcing industry is expected to clock a 32% growth by 2012-13 and is likely to generate USD 2.2 bn in revenues for the country in next two years. The report also emphasized on spin-off of automotive engineering services from IT sector to realize better growth opportunities.

Leading global automakers like Toyota, Daimler-Chrysler, Fiat, Ford etc source components from India. Both Toyota and Volvo source gear box for the automobile range from India. Daimler-Chrysler not just sources components but also uses IT services for integrating electronic gadgets in their cars. In fact Daimler-Chrysler sourced USD125 Mn worth of such components and software from India.

India ranks poorly in the top 50 of UNIDO’s global Industrial Competitiveness; Automobiles and Textile industry make it to the top

India has been ranked 41st in the latest industrial competitiveness report prepared by United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO). The ranking is based on the competitive industrial performance of countries. It is based on two sets of components viz., industrial development indicators and the competitive industrial performance index. It benchmarks a country in the backdrop of liberalization and globalisation. The scorecard suggests about competitive performance of a country, which is measured in terms of manufacturing value added per capita and manufacturing exports per capita.

The scorecard also takes note of industrialization, which suggests share of manufacturing value added in GDP and of medium and high technology in manufacturing.
UNIDO, in an accompanying statement said, that the scorecard brings out a persistent pattern of performance over the years among regional groupings of countries, with industrialized countries leading the rankings and transition economies tightly grouped in the middle ranks.

Singapore topped the ranking followed by Ireland, Switzerland, Japan, Belgium, Sweden, Finalnd, Germany, Republic of Korea, Taiwan, France, USA, Hong Kong SAR, Austria and Slovenia in the top 15. India although ranked 41st fared better than its neighbours with Pakistan ranking at 55, Bangladesh at 67 and Sri Lanka occupying the 75th position.

However, India made it to the top 15 automakers of the world, and among the top five in the leading developing countries category of a separate UNIDO report on motor vehicle manufacturers, thanks to a growing auto industry. According to the report, India ranked 12th in the list of world's top 15 automakers, which is led by Japan followed by the US and Germany. In the leading developing countries category, India ranked fourth. The list is topped by Mexico, followed by Korea, Iran. Brazil held the fifth position.

Also, Indian textile industry came fifth amongst top 15 textile producing countries in the world and India also made it to the list of world's top 15 producers of chemicals, electrical machinery, basic metals (iron and steel, non-ferrous metals) and other products.