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The Textile Magazine
jANUARY 2012
office with a dedicated sales & serv-
ice set-up. Each regional office is
self-sufficient, in the sense that it is
equipped with adequate manpower
to promptly attend to sales and serv-
ice calls. By making frequent visits
to customers, the rapport with them
is getting better, making it easier to
understand the market trend. We
could also explore more and more
new markets during the four-year
period.
TM:
How many Picanol ma-
chines are currently in operation
in India and how many market lo-
cations? Please name some of the
leading company customers and
the major projects that you’ve ex-
ecuted for them so far?
KV:
We have more than 15,000
machines running all over the coun-
try, covering organised and mid-seg-
ment market areas like Ichalkaranji,
Bhiwandi, Bhilwara, etc. Almost all
major textile groups in India have
installed Picanol weaving machines.
Some top customers are Bombay
Rayon, Alok industries, Vardhman
Textiles, Nahar Industrial Enterpris-
es, Bharat Vinay Mills, LNJ Denim,
NSL Group, etc.
TM:
Can you throw some light
on the weaving segment of the tex-
tile industry in India – the market
size, the growth witnessed in the
last few years and the major play-
ers in the segment?
KV:
At the moment, weaving is
only in its formative stage as com-
pared to spinning. There are now
only a handful of textile units with
integrated plant facilities for spin-
ning, weaving, processing and knit-
ting. Though the opportunities for
conversion from spinning to weav-
ing are enormous, it is difficult to
predict the market size as the growth
of the weaving segment would de-
pend on many factors.
A large number of spinners can
go for value addition, which implies
opening up of the weaving market.
Most powerloom units are getting
themselves ready for modernisation.
With policy support from the Gov-
ernment to go in for new machines
with 10 per cent capital subsidy, the
mid-segment markets will prefer
new machines to imported second-
hand machines. With the ongoing
modernisation, even corporates from
the organised sector would replace
even 10-year-old machines with new
ones.
TM:
What are the brand weav-
ing products and solutions offered
by the company in the Indian mar-
ket? What is its current market
share?
KV:
Thanks to our loyal custom-
ers and the repeat orders from them,
we enjoy a leading market share in
airjet and rapier technology. We re-
leased our latest airjet technology,
OmniplusSummum, at ITMA 2011
in Barcelona and are happy that the
product attracted most customer at-
tention at our booth. Basically we
focus on lower consumption in or-
der to reduce the cost of operation
for the customer, higher speed, use
of the latest hardware & software
technology for our control station,
etc. The star attraction among the
weaving machines was the Omni-
plusSummum. We also released the
new Rapier loom OPTIMAX with
its potential for 540 cm wider width
looms, as well as a positive guided
gripper version, aiming at extending
our range of applications in techni-
cover story
The global team of Picanol Group