Sorab Agarwal, Executive Director - Action Construction Equipment
It’s not just the growth momentum that the CE industry is witnessing, but also a positive approach among buyers towards innovative equipment, machinery, and solutions being offered by manufacturers.
At ACE, we continuously strive to offer technically advanced and innovative products to our customers. We have designed the chassis and boom in-house with our engineering capability. We will be using boom assembly manufactured from high strength steel with an optimized shape, which would drastically reduce its weight while enhancing the overall lifting capability of the machine.
Integration of best in class driveline along with topnotch hydraulics and in-house designed structures a high safety factor and boom assembly is what differentiates our cranes from the competitors and is also a great example of the Government-led Make in India initiative.
ACE is regularly adding new features to its product lines and expanding its product portfolio to become a holistic solution provider.
In view of the projected growth and government’s Make in India initiative, most OEMs are upgrading their manufacturing facilities in an intelligent and innovative manner by using automation, robotics, and advanced technologies for manufacturing high-tech machines that meet global quality standards. ACE is also regularly adding new features to its product lines and expanding the product portfolio to become a holistic solution provider in the near future.
We are geared up to meet the new emission norms which are set to be implemented in October 2020.
At ACE, we are geared up to ensure that our machines meet the BS IV standards, as notified by the GOI. This will certainly have an impact in terms of better emission controls, further enabling us to offer more environment-friendly equipment to the customers. However, the equipment cost will increase by 10-15%, depending upon the models.
In fact, our R&D center in Faridabad is fully equipped for the development and speedy commercialization of globally competitive products. We focus on design improvement for enhancing our machine’s safety, versatility, productivity, and overall value proposition. Our aim is to make our equipment more fuel-efficient, environment-friendly, lighter and hybrid in nature, as per the current global trend.
The backhoe in India is like the Swiss knife which can do all kinds of jobs and has reached its demand peak of 45000-48000 units a year which it will continue to sustain.
The Indian market is unique when it comes to usage of backhoes as compared to any other market in the world. India is also the largest backhoe market in the world and also the largest equipment segment in terms of volume. The backhoe in India is considered a multi-purpose equipment for handling various earth jobs and is also mobile on roads, whereas the mini excavator/hydraulic excavator is a specialized equipment for earth excavation with restricted mobility owing to the crawler base.
Post-Oct 2020, the market dynamics will change for the wheeled equipment market, especially backhoes, due to the 10 to 15% hike in price. But the impact will not be to a great extent as the CE industry will absorb the increase in cost. I can say this from earlier experiences when the higher cost happened due to usage issue or an increase in taxation.
Secondly, the Backhoe Loader has reached its demand peak of 45000-48000 units a year, and it would mostly hold around the same volume, whereas the Excavator/Hydraulic Excavator is on a growth trajectory and will achieve similar volumes in the next 5-7 years as the CE Industry moves towards specialization.
We remain optimistic in our outlook for the CE business and expect the industry to register double-digit growth in the long-term.
Currently, we export to around 20 countries across the globe, majorly catering to Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa & Latin America regions. ACE is already the No.1 Crane manufacturer in India and the world’s largest in Pick and Carry Cranes category. In the next five years, we plan to establish ACE as an International brand through quality product offerings and a strong focus on after-sales service. Availability of spare parts for 10 years and an extensive network of channel partners sets us apart from our competitors in the market. Additionally, our technically advanced and extensive range of product offerings in diverse categories will also play a major role in expanding our footprints globally.
With the Modi 2.0 government in power, we are confident and optimistic that its proactive endeavors towards creating structural drivers of rapid growth will augur well for the economy. ACE is well poised to benefit from the various structural policy reforms along with focused infrastructure spending by the government.
ACE is an approved Training Partner of the Infrastructure Skill Council (IESC).
ACE has the widest range of product portfolio catering to major requirement of engineering, construction and infrastructure industry. We have a robust pan-India aftersales service network of dealers and area offices operating out of 100+ locations and supported by 21 regional offices located in key tier-I & II cities. These regional offices are connected with the product and zonal heads through our Marketing HQ and a dedicated Product Support Division in Faridabad. This approach brings around a faster response and turnaround time in our services.
ACE’s dedicated Training Center in Faridabad provides machine operation and maintenance training to operators, technicians, service engineers and service managers of our customers and dealers through well-formulated training courses. The company is an approved Training Partner of Infrastructure Skill Council (IESC).
The ACE brand has immense credibility with the financing institutions in the country’s market.
At ACE, we have credible relationship with most of the financiers in the country and since they have been associated with us from a long time and seen us evolve and grow, there is a great deal of trust in the ACE brand, providing us immense credibility in the market. We also associate with finance companies at regular intervals to offer attractive schemes and options to our customers in terms of payment cycle and lucrative interest rate benefits.
Increasing focus on precast structures for speedier execution of projects will raise demand for mobile cranes, tower cranes, backhoe loaders and piling rigs.
After experiencing two robust years of growth, the CE industry is currently facing a subdued environment, which will last for 2-3 quarters. But moving forward, the Indian construction equipment sector will undergo sweeping changes. It will witness higher demand amid the government’s resolve to build world-class infrastructure as well as digitalization of manufacturing processes for rolling out technically advanced equipment.
The future looks promising as the country is undergoing development and upgradation of urban infrastructure. The bullet train project, elevated roads, and rail networks being developed to an advanced level and the increasing focus on precast structures for enhancing the execution speed of projects will play a stellar role in increasing the demand for construction equipment, especially mobile cranes, tower cranes, backhoe loaders and piling rigs.
Also, the emerging growth areas in terms of leasing and rental of equipment, exports and increasing deployment of refurbished equipment, integrated with timely service to the customers, will bring an impetus to the growth of the CE industry.
NBM&CW December 2019
