Rinder India bags Royal Enfield mandate

Chennai-based bikemaker joins Bajaj Auto, TVS and Yamaha as Rinder India's two-wheeler clients.

For Rinder India, the foray into the small commercial vehicle segment with the Ashok Leyland-Nissan Dost was a key part of its agenda last year. The Dost's good sales – an average of 1,500 units a month – is music to Rinder India’s ears. The Chakan-based company, wholly-owned subsidiary of Rinder Spain supplies headlamps for the Dost. Rinder India has been supplying between 100 and 120 vehicle sets of headlamps to the CV manufacturer every day. In calendar 2011, Rinder India which has plants at Chakan and Bahadurgarh in the north crossed the Rs 170 crore turnover mark. Managing director S A Latif says, “We have achieved a phenomenal growth since our inception a decade ago. Today, Rinder India enjoys a market share of nearly 17 percent in the two-wheelers lighting solutions business. The company hopes to continue to grow at between 15 to 20 percent year-on-year.”

In the two-wheeler business, Rinder counts Bajaj Auto (its largest client), TVS Motor and India Yamaha as key clients. This sector remains the core business area and Rinder has introduced a slew of products for it including LED tail-lamps with optical guide illusion technology, LED position lamps, LED blinkers, LED license lamps and projector beams in headlamps. For KTM bikes, made by Bajaj, Rinder supplies the bulk of the lighting which includes tail-lights with LEDs, headlights and blinkers, the smallest ever made so far for two-wheelers. The company has also introduced a range of higher-intensity bulbs that include the H4, H7 and H11 in two-wheeler headlamp solutions. Now with orders for the Enfield Thunderbird 500, Rinder India is expanding its customer base. For the Thunderbird 500 which is a niche product, it will supply complete lighting solutions. In the four-wheeler space in which the company has a limited presence, Rinder India is working on various globally-sourced items.

Looking into the future, Rinder says that the next big thing will be introduction of affordable LED-based headlamps for two-wheelers for which the company is working on. OEMs are fast opting for LEDs for most, if not all, of their lighting requirements. Bulbs will be replaced by LEDs in almost all the functions of automotive lighting in the near future for better visibility with minimal energy consumption. Rinder has already shown the capability to develop all the future projects using LEDs by making prototypes of products that have been shown to OEMs.

As far as eco-friendly initiatives go, Rinder India as a TPM company has implemented the ‘SHE’ pillar across the organisation. “Our products and processes comply with both environmental and safety regulations,” says Latif. The company exports its products to Japan and Europe and hence is bound by certain standards.

As far as automotive lighting solutions go, Rinder offers all types. “ We are pioneers on introducing new products in the Indian market. We have introduced H4 and H7 bulbs for two-wheeler headlamps. We have also designed and introduced projector lamps, LED blinkers, LED license lamps and LED light guides for headlamps and tail-lamps,” says Latif.

As regards vehicle interior lighting products, Rinder India is evaluating some products for which it has brought in some samples from its principal, Rinder Spain. Among the main product that is being evaluated are the LED interior lights for buses.

With the entry of high-end luxury coaches like Volvo and Mercedes-Benz entering the country, Rinder India hopes that it can supply these products later should these players seek to localise parts for the buses. The numbers though will not be very large but for Rinder India, this would be a step towards making a greater impact in the CV segment even as it makes an impact for small CVs. Apart from Indian customers, Rinder also supplies products to Kawasaki worldwide and Yamaha Indonesia.

With all these likely projects, Rinder India is keen to have sufficient capacity. In April, it embarked on a capacity expansión project slated to be over by July 2012. With this, Rinder's current capacity of about three million lighting sets will increase by 50 percent.

BRIAN DE SOUZA