ITEMA India registers record sales growth in 2014

Far superior performance expected this fiscal

The year 2014 was a challenging one for most of the textile machinery manufacturers. With the global textile industry slowly limping back to normalcy, many OEMs have started to see light at the end of the tunnel. European and Japanese players, along with the Indian OEMs, are fighting hard to mark their presence in the success story of the Indian textile industry.

ITEMA-UpdeepSingh-pic
Mr. Updeep Singh, Managing Director – Indian Operations

One such European brand, with its bold and significant measures, has been able to march ahead on the Indian shores at an opportune moment. The company is none other than the Italian weaving major ITEMA.

Steps such as restructuring within the top management, implementing lean production systems and the customer-centric approach have helped restore faith among customers across the globe. ITEMA Version 2.0 has started paying rich dividends to the parent company.

In India, the company performance was a little poor in 2012 and 2013. But the new company set-up, team reorganization and change in leadership (Mr. Updeep Singh taking over in March 2014) changed the fortunes for ITEMA. The Indian customer perception of this Italian brand has been very positive ever since. This has resulted in record sales from India in 2014.

ITEMA India sales of weaving machines more than doubled in 2014. The rapier R9500 contributes to a major chunk of sales and has been very well received by Indian customers.

“We are overwhelmed by the top lines achieved by our India entity during 2014. Indian customers have always demanded the best, and we assure them the best ownership experience from our new range of products,” stressed Mr. Fulvio Carlo Toma, ITEMA Group’s Sales & Marketing Director.

Marking another milestone, ITEMA India generated the very first order for its high-performance airjet A9500p weaving machines at the GTTES textile event held in Mumbai at the beginning of the year.

As electricity and labor costs are rising in emerging nations such as China and India, which are the main markets for air jet looms, demand for products with greater energy efficiency and enhanced productivity is expanding. Customers are willing to pay a premium for higher and guaranteed performance.

The company is also gearing up to revamp its existing service centers in an approach to assure its customers of the best aftersales and service-related activities. Priding himself on his own success, Mr. Updeep Singh, Managing Director – Indian Operations, laughs heartily when asked about the targets for 2015.

“With ITMA Milan round the corner, it’s challenging to sell our existing machines as customers are playing the ‘wait and watch’ game. But we are positive that we will better our previous year’s sales figure by 20 per cent,” said Mr. Singh during his interaction with The Textile Magazine on completing his one year tenure with ITEMA S.P.A.

India is indeed the centre of attraction for global investors, thanks to the massive slowdown of the Chinese textile industry. More and more machinery manufacturers are looking at India for their expansion plans.

Asked about ITEMA and its future investment plans, Mr. Toma said: “There is no doubt that a number of international players are ready to invest big and set up shop on Indian shores. We at ITEMA consider India one of the key strategic markets, going forward. As for bigger plans, let’s see how it goes.”