French electricals and digital building infrastructure major Legrand expects IoT, energy efficiency, connectivity, and user-interface product verticals to drive its business in India, contributing the bulk of its revenue, over the next few years according to a PTI report.
Legrand India CEO and MD Tony Berland on the future of India business, said, the Internet of things (IoT), energy efficiency, connectivity, and user interface products will drive the business here, contributing the bulk of its revenue over the next few years. “Currently, IoT fetches around 19 per cent of the topline and I want to take it to at least 25 per cent over the next few years. When it comes to IoT, I’ve a very clear roadmap ready and most of the IoT products sold here are also developed locally.”
He also said the connectivity vertical is the single largest revenue head now. Legrand India had closed 2019-20 with a topline of Rs 2,621 crore, while the same contracted almost 9 per cent in 2020-21 due to the pandemic. While the first quarter of 2021-22 was also a near-washout due to the second wave of the pandemic, July-September was better and from October onwards demand is back to the 2019 level.
What makes him really optimistic about India is the huge scope for IoT and the large energy saving objectives. Berland also said they are investing heavily in digital infra here especially in data centres where they are getting new products to keep pests away, ensure connectivity and better user-interface. Legrand is also working a bit in the electric vehicles space with charging stations and have tied up with Tata Motors.
But Berland ruled out capacity addition or capex towards it saying they’ve ample capacity already built and pointed out the Rs 1,500 crore capex in the past three years to build capacity.
“We aren’t increasing manufacturing capacity because we already have excess capacity. Now we’re adding more automation and thus investing in products and R&D and not in manufacturing capacity as our focus is more on IoT and automation. We’ve no issue at all with capacity as we can increase it manifold at any plant because of the way the plants are built.”
Berland, who took over India operations in March 2019, says despite India fetching only under 5 per cent of its global revenue, the headquarters is pleased with the success so far and is keen to make it bigger and considers this market to be among the key growth pillars going forward.
Legrand India offers a wide range of products in energy distribution, wiring devices, home automation, structured cabling, lighting management solutions, cable management and industrial application products and is an undisputed leader in MCBs, RCDs and DBs. The company is working with projects like smart cities, bringing its IoT-based home solutions to the country and has partnered with Google, Amazon and Samsung for its interoperability.
