Mitsubishi Electric India Pvt Ltd, part of Tokyo-based Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, aims to grow at nearly 50 per cent a year. The company, set up in September 2010, has expanded its network across 20 cities. Managing Director Shinji Yamabe feels India is important for the growth of Mitsubishi globally. Excerpts from an interview:

How important is Mitsubishi Electric India in terms of the group’s global operations?

If Mitsubishi Electric Corporation wants to make global progress, it is not possible without doing the same in India. Mitsubishi has a long history in India.

In 1957, we opened the first overseas office in New Delhi. We are now dealing in automotive components, elevators, air-conditioners, power equipment and locomotives.

Mitsubishi India is a comprehensive sales company that deals with all products of the Group.

Currently, how is your network spread out in India?

We started from two sales offices — Gurgoan and Bangalore — and provided support only to Japan-India-Singapore businesses. Since then, we have expanded our branch network across 20 cities in India, including four technical centres for factory automation and one factory in Pune for inverters. We have established an R&D centre in Pune. We started with four people and now it’s around 600.

How do you plan to grow further?

We are thinking of strengthening our existing offices. We have covered almost all tier-I and II cities. We expect the number of employees to grow 20 per cent a year.

What about your sales turnover?

Our plan is to grow every year by 40-50 per cent. In the last financial year, we recorded sales turnover of Rs 400 crore.

How is the Mitsubishi-L&T joint venture to make power equipment shaping up?

There are a number of joint ventures by Japanese players in the power sector. Ours is one of the first.

There are already some contracts in hand. There have been delays in acquisition of new orders because of the economy, but it is coming back. We have already started production.

What are Mitsubishi’s core businesses in India?

In India, we have a strong market share in the urban metro system.

We supply equipment to almost 70 per cent of metro trains across India. Air-conditioners is another core business. For factory automation, we acquired Messung Group last year.

For power devices, we will set up a sales function in India beginning next fiscal.

Which of these could be the growth driver?

Factory automation is an interesting sector — I’m keen to strengthen it. Air-conditioners will also be very important for us, because we are selling the most power-efficient models.

How do you compare India with other markets such as China?

Currently, India’s demand for air-conditioners is around 4 million annually. It was the same for China about 20 years ago. Today, over 40 million units are sold a year in China.

Although India is lagging, I believe it is not far behind China’s market.

With evolving technology, what we are selling today are better products. Compared to 10 years ago, there is stress on conserving the environment, so there is a market of more efficient products.

What is your expectation from the new Government next year?

Sometimes, changing the tax ratio is fine, but this is not clear at times. I expect the new Government to take up policies that help companies. This is my sincere expectation. Introduction of Goods and Services Tax is another step forward.

siddhartha.s@thehindu.co.in

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