Nippon Paint, the fourth largest paint company in the world by revenues, is eyeing exports out of India in the automotive refinish, wood coatings and light industrial coatings segments. Export markets tapped include African nations apart from Indonesia and Australia.
This apart it is also targetting some of the West Asian markets for the time being, that is till its production facility in Sharjah is not fully on-stream. The Sharjah facility – a strategic manufacturing partnership with Best Paint Factory – is expected to start commercial production next month onwards.
According to Sharad Malhotra, President,Nippon Paint (India) & Senior VP NIPSEA Group, post Covid the company started exploring the sub-continent as a possible alternative for export and targeted supplies to Africa, Australia and South East Asia. Similar nature of offerings (between India and these countries) was seen as the biggest advantage.
Supplies were initially to distributors, but now Nippon would look at expanding presence in these market through setting up of its own subsidiaries.
“There is a good market for auto refinish and wood coatings outside (of India) particularly in places like Africa. Overall, prospects of the auto industry look good in the long term and there will be increased demand as supply issues, particularly things like chip shortages are sorted out,” Malhotra told BusinessLine, during an interview.
In Africa, the company operates in Kenya through a distributor and based on the developments there, it would explore more markets in the continent. South Africa, incidentally, is one of the larger auto-refinish markets in the region.
India Ops
Nippon’s auto refinish and allied verticals (wood coatings and light industrial coatings) is a ₹300 crore vertical. On the other hand, the auto refinish market is a ₹3,000 crore segment in India.
“So you see there is scope for us to grow here in India too,” Malhotra said, adding that Nippon was “open to acquisitions too” if it fitted the bill.
The company’s India unit is located at Bawal (Haryana), has a monthly capacity of 1,000 tonnes. The Bawal unit operates at 75–80 per cent capacity; with 30–35 per cent of the total production being made available through contract manufacturing.
In October 2021, Nippon Paint had made acquired an Indian paint company, operations of which would be scaled up too.