India’s molders keep investing

They need to, according to experts who spoke with MPW at the Plastindia trade show in February.

The country’s injection molding community is expected to have about a 6%/year increasing demand for injection molding machinery/capacity through at least 2015.

According to Milind Aginhotry, director of injection molding machine manufacturing operations at Electronica Machine Tools (Pune), total press sales in India were 2487 in 2005/06, 2899 in 2006/07 and 3138 in 2007/08. Indian machine manufacturers have lost market share, he says, with their share now at about 35-40%. A dumping case brought last summer by Indian manufacturers, notably LT-Demag, against some Chinese press manufacturers was decided recently in the Indian firms’ favor, but at press time the court awaited comment and reaction from the accused before finalizing its decision.

Electronica also is the exclusive importer of Haitian (Ningbo, China) injection molding machinery to India, and Aginhotry said his firm will begin assembly of the Haitian Saturn-series machines in India for the domestic market. He said that compared to the Haitian machines, his own company’s presses were more costly.   

Narsingh Balgi, MD of Ferromatik Milacron India (Ahmedabad), a Milacron joint venture with the Mahendra Petal family, said his firm has an installed base in the country of about 3000 presses, and at the latest Plastindia exhibited its first all-electric machine. His colleague Yogesh Ubhaykar, Sr. engineer for marketing and sales, said the company claims about a 30% share of the country’s market, with packaging the fastest growing market segment.

At L&T-Demag (Chennai), the joint venture of Sumitomo-Demag and Larsen & Toubro, S. Narayanaswamy, manager of export sales, said the company introduced its S-Tec range as an option to processors concerned about a machine’s upfront costs. Now the machines are only available to 150 tonnes clamp force but more soon will be offered. The machines cost about 1.5 times the price of comparable Chinese imports, he said, but are backed by the company’s established and extensive sales/service network. —[email protected]