February 20, 2013: Car and bike battery manufacturer Amara Raja Batteries has put in motion its plans to set up an all-new manufacturing facility near Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh. The plant, slated to become operational in the first half of 2014-15, will come up around 70km away from the company’s existing facility. With a planned capacity of two to 2.5 million four-wheeler batteries per year, the plant will expand overall manufacturing capacity to 7.6 million batteries.
The investment of Rs 4.40 billion is in addition to an already approved investment of Rs 3.04 billion to expand capacities in medium VRLA, automotive four-wheeler and two-wheeler product lines. The company, in its last investment cycle, had announced a plan to expand its two-wheeler battery manufacturing capability from four to 4.8 million units by two to three million units per year. This expansion operation is expected to begin operations in 2013-14.
Commenting on the expansion, Rajesh Jindal, chief marketing officer (pictured), says that the company will begin supplying two-wheeler batteries to OEMs in about two months’ time. The company has entered into supply agreements with two-wheeler OEMs including Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India, with whom the company has signed an exclusive supplier agreement. Although competitor Exide Batteries has been supplying VRLA batteries to two-wheeler OEMs for the past two or three years, Jindal believes that there is enough room for both of them to operate. Jindal says, “Hero and Honda already sell their bikes with VRLA batteries. But we’ve been concentrating on the replacement market till now and have a 15 percent market share there.” When queried as to how bikes that come with flooded batteries can be retrofitted with VRLA batteries, Jindal mentioned that the company has been conscious in the design of the battery. “The VRLA batteries that we produce are of the same height and width of the flooded batteries. The technician fitting a VRLA battery in an old bike that was using a flooded battery won’t need to make any changes in the bike’s physical or electrical components,” says Jindal, adding that OE-fitted VRLA batteries are of a different shape.
This understanding of the market requirement and tweaking designs to suit the needs on the ground has been a result of the listed company’s R&D team. Jindal insists that the internal technology keeps refining itself with new chemicals being tested constantly. “We look at processes rather than products,” he signs off.
KARTHIK H