India is one of the priority markets for US-based Delta Faucet and it will take a call on establishing a production facility in India in three years’ time after watching its market growth, according to Ken Roberts, Vice President- International, Delta Faucet Company, USA.

The company is also making efforts to ensure that the rising value of the US dollar against global currencies, particularly euro and INR, does not place it at a disadvantage vis-a-vis its competitors by pushing up the import costs, he said.

Speaking to BusinessLine here on Wednesday on the sidelines of the launching of Delta Faucet’s products in the city, he said as his company launched its products in the country only in 2013 it is still engaged in establishing the distribution infrastructure in India and the service facilities. But as it continues to grow and mature, that would be a time when it would start looking at the question of establishing its own manufacturing facility in India. At present, it is in 23 cities with 47 showrooms. The company has witnessed strong sales growth since launch but he declined to reveal sales figures as Delta was a publicly traded stock.

Asked how long it would take for the company to decide on that and whether it had set any business target before deciding on indigenous manufacture, Roberts said realistically the company would require at least three years to develop its customer base and business. He said his company had not set any "hard and fast" target with regard to business volume or size of distributor network before taking a call on investment in production facility in India. Like others his company would decide through the annual planning process on the appropriate time for investigating it.

Ravi Nindwani, Managing Director, Delta Faucet Company India Pvt Ltd, Gurgaon, said the first goal was to establish 100-120 showrooms in India by the fifth year of its operations or even a year before that. He expected to end the current year (2015), its third year of presence in India, with at least with 60 showrooms and by mid-2017 the network would expand to 100 showrooms.

He said as a new entrant, the market share of his company which is into faucets and shower products, was in single digit. Despite being a late entrant, Delta’s entry was "the most solid" by an MNC in this business in recent past. While the initial five years would be spent in establishing the base, subsequently the growth would accelerate. Last year, Delta witnessed a 60 per cent growth in its business in India and this year, it was trying to double its business even as the economy shows sign of improving. In terms of pricing, Delta Faucet has positioned itself "very, very strategically" so that it could compete aggressively in the mass premium segment where the volumes were. One bathroom could be fitted for as low as ₹16,000- ₹17000 and the cost goes up to ₹60,000-₹70,000 (under Delta brand). It also has a luxury brand `Brizo’, he said.

Ravi said the size of the Indian bathroom fittings market (faucets, showers and accessories excluding sanitarywares) in the organised sector was about ₹3,200 crore-₹3,500 crore. The overall market growth was between 6 to 9 per cent per year. With rising income, the premium and luxury segments have seen greater growth than the market and are growing at 12-15 per cent. He was confident of the market growth sustaining.

Commenting on the importance of India to the US parent Delta Faucet, Roberts said that "it is very important to us" and he saw India like a lot of others as "one of the two or three biggest’ in terms of market size and potential and it was "top priority" for his company within its global expansion plans. While conceding that the currency exchange rate was impacting everyone with US dollar rising, he said to some extent this would reflect in the price of the products. He pointed out that a lot of Indian producers were also importing raw materials. But his company would strive to maintain its "competitive pricing" in the segments it was present.

Delta Faucet’s distributor Purple Bay Home Decors (P) Ltd has opened its showroom in RS Puram in the city.

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