Tag: India Entry Strategy

Game of chicken: Jubilant FoodWorks launches US chicken brand Popeyes in India

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January 24, 2022

Written By Devika Singh

The entry of Jubilant FoodWorks will intensify competition in the fried chicken segment, where KFC so far has maintained its stronghold.

“The success of the brand lies in its traditional and unique technique of hand breading, battering, and marinating its fresh chicken for 12 hours in bold Cajun seasonings,” the company added.

Popeyes runs over 3,400 restaurants in 25 countries.

With the entry of Jubilant FoodWorks, the competition is set to intensify in the fried chicken segment, where KFC has maintained leadership in the country so far.

“KFC has enjoyed a free run in the fried chicken market. There are some local players in this segment but no large QSR (quick service restaurant) player had a presence in it until now. With Popeyes as a competitor, now Jubilant FoodWorks is stepping into that opportunity,” said Devangshu Dutta, chief executive at consulting firm Third Eyesight.

While launching its initial public offering (IPO) last year, Devyani International, the largest franchisee of Yum! Brands (which owns KFC), had stressed the advantage it has over other QSRs in the country.

“We have no competition for KFC in India,” Ravi Kant Jaipuria, chairman, Devyani International, had said at the time. Devyani International runs 284 KFC India stores across 107 cities and the brand contributes more than half of its revenues. Sapphire Foods, which too launched its IPO last year, is another major franchise for KFC in India.

Both the companies already compete with Jubilant FoodWorks in the pizza segment as they also operate Yum! Brands-owned Pizza Hut in India. Jubilant FoodWorks with Domino’s Pizza, however, has clear leadership in the pizza market. Sample this: Pizza Hut currently has 500 stores in India, of which 317 are run by Devyani International; Jubilant FoodWorks, on the other hand, already has 1,335 outlets of Domino’s Pizza in India.

Now with the launch of Popeyes, Jubilant FoodWorks, it seems, wants a chunk of the fried chicken pie too.

Westlife Development, which holds the master franchise for McDonald’s in southern and western India, also has set its sight on the fried chicken segment in India. In an interview with Moneycontrol in September last year, Smita Jatia, managing director of Westlife Development, shared an ambitious plan to become a market leader in the segment. The company has already introduced fried chicken in its 125 stores in South India and plans to soon launch the food item in the western region too.

Clearly, the fried chicken market is certainly headed for interesting times as several new QSR players vie for a share of it. According to experts, the segment also offers the next avenue for growth for QSR players. “While fried chicken was the first to take off in Southeast Asia, in India, pizza and burgers found takers given the preference towards wheat-based cuisine in some parts of the country,” said Rajat Tuli, partner at global management consulting firm Kearney.

“However, as Indians become more experimental with food and trying out different cuisines, the fried chicken segment offers the next arena for growth to QSR companies,” he added.

Tuli also believes that the segment has enough space for a couple of players. “The QSR space is poised for over 20 percent growth in the next five-six years and hence there is enough headroom for multiple players to grow in it,” he said.

‘Veg options and no MSG’

The Popeyes India menu will feature the signature Cajun-flavoured Chicken Sandwich and Popeyes signature Chicken in Classic and Spicy flavours. The Indian menu will also feature an array of vegetarian options and will also have rice bowls and wraps. The entire India menu has no flavour enhancer monosodium glutamate (MSG), and the chicken is antibiotic-free, said Jubilant FoodWorks.

In a statement, Shyam S. Bhartia, chairman, and Hari S. Bhartia, co-chairman, Jubilant FoodWorks, said, “We are excited to introduce the Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen brand to chicken-loving Indian consumers. We are confident that Popeyes will not only delight guests but also strategically complement our portfolio and fortify JFL’s leadership in the QSR domain.”

Popeyes will start with its flagship store in Bengaluru’s Koramangala on January 19, followed by stores in New BEL Road and Kammanahalli soon thereafter. The brand will have its own app (Android and iOS) and mobile website.

To ensure a smooth and seamless delivery experience, Jubilant FoodWorks has built its in-house delivery fleet with e-bikes to enable zero-emission delivery. The company is also taking precautions given the pandemic situation.

“Safety protocols like daily temperature screening for all employees and frequent sanitisation of the restaurant are being implemented and frequent sanitisation of bikes will be conducted. All delivery riders will be compulsorily wearing face masks and gloves while following the frequent hand sanitisation protocol,” it added.

Source: moneycontrol

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Game of toys

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January 10, 2022

Written By Vaishnavi Gupta

UAE-based Tablez has launched a kids’ super store in India

The first House of Toys store was unveiled at Global Malls, Bengaluru, in December, 2021. The store offers more than 20,000 products, from feeding bottles, strollers, and bathtubs, to wearable tech, remote-controlled toys, and stationery. Spread across 5,100 sq ft, the store also houses the Build-a-Bear shop, where kids can make their own soft toys. “We have toys starting from Rs 30, going up to Rs 30,000 in our assortment. We have 3,000 toys in the value segment of below Rs 500,” says Adeeb Ahamed, managing director, Tablez.

House of Toys aims to open 12-15 stores by the end of this year, initially in South India, and metros, followed by tier I cities and beyond. Tablez also plans to rebrand at least 10 Toys“R”Us stores in India to House of Toys in the second half of this year. The store’s products are available on Tablez’s own e-commerce platform, and will soon be listed on third-party marketplaces like Amazon and Flipkart. “House of Toys has potential to be one of the top revenue contributors of Tablez,” Ahamed says.

Tablez has been consolidating its presence in the Indian market lately. Last year, Tablez launched Yoyoso’s seventh outlet in India, and opened another outlet, its 33rd, of American ice cream brand Cold Stone Creamery, both in Kerala. Further, it has earmarked an investment of Rs 100 crore for the expansion of sportswear store Go Sport. Fashion brand Desigual, which caters to women in the 25-45 age group, is now present on Tata CLiQ Luxury, and will soon make inroads into Mumbai and Bengaluru, followed by Chandigarh and Hyderabad.

Presently, Tablez operates 80 brand stores in India; it plans to take this number to 250 over the next five years.

Playing smart

Given that more than a quarter of India’s population is under 15 years of age, intuitively, it makes for a “great market for toys,” says Devangshu Dutta, founder, Third Eyesight. He says upper-income households with fewer children tend to buy more toys, games and learning aids, especially since children have been much more confined to the home environment in recent years.

According to Angshuman Bhattacharya, partner and sector leader (consumer products & retail), EY India, the growth of this market has been driven by improved availability and penetration of branded toys, upgradation from manual to automated toys, and improved awareness and availability brought about by e-commerce.

However, any kids category, whether apparel or toys, has been a difficult model to crack, owing to factors such as low SKU proliferation, and difficulty in inventory management, says Bhattacharya.

To stand out in the market, analysts say, brands need to create an authoritative and diverse product mix, which, in turn, requires a relatively large store footprint in high-visibility high-footfall locations. “The stock turnover is also slower than many other product categories, so merchandising and replenishment strategies need to be really smart. Branded merchandise offers lower margins, so private labels and unique products are necessary to add to the margin mix,” Dutta notes.

Deeply understanding a store’s catchment, so that consumer engagement can be kept high through the year — rather than being limited to local celebratory peaks and holidays — could be a useful strategy, say analysts.

Source: financialexpress

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Ikea’s big ‘small’ plans

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December 20, 2021

Written By Vaishnavi Gupta

The furniture brand’s retail roadmap includes city stores in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru, followed by tier I and II towns

The furniture market in India stood at $17.77 billion in 2020, and is expected to reach $37.72 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 13.37%, according to a Research and Markets report. Godrej Interio, UrbanLadder and Pepperfry are among the big players in this space, all with a significant online presence, too. Godrej Interio has 300 exclusive stores in India, while Pepperfry has more than 110 Studios.

Spread across three floors, Ikea’s first city store has 9,000 products in focus, of which 2,200 are available for takeaway and the rest for home delivery. “We have observed that it is not easy to find large retail locations in cities like Mumbai and Bengaluru. The small store offers convenience and accessibility for consumers to experience Ikea products,” says Per Hornell, area manager and country expansion manager, Ikea India. This launch is in line with the company’s aim to become accessible to 200 million homes in India by 2025, and 500 million homes by 2030.

More launches are being planned: another city store in Mumbai in the spring of 2022 and a large-format store as well as a city store in Bengaluru by the end of 2022. For its retail expansion in Maharashtra, the company plans to invest Rs 6,000 crore by 2030. “We are on track to exceed the investment commitment of Rs 10,500 crore made for India in December last year,” adds Hornell. Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru are the three cities on its radar at the moment, which will be followed by tier I and II towns.

Furthermore, Ingka Centres, part of Ingka Group that includes Ikea Retail, is coming up with its first shopping centre in Gurugram (followed by Noida), which will be integrated with an Ikea store.

In India, unlike its organised furniture market competitors, Ikea doesn’t have a pan-India online presence yet. It has been following a “cluster-based expansion strategy” for its online offering, but the company insists this is not a limitation. “At present, 30% of our overall India sales come from online channels,” Hornell informs. Through its e-commerce website and mobile shopping app, the company currently operates in Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Surat, Ahmedabad and Vadodara.

On the other hand, players like Godrej Interio and Pepperfry have big plans to tap new markets. The former aims to add 50 exclusive stores each year, while Pepperfry aims to achieve the 200 Studios mark by March 2022. In September this year, Pepperfry forayed into the customised furniture segment with the Pepperfry Modular offering, which focusses on modular kitchens, wardrobes and entertainment units.

Good start?

This is a good time for Ikea to establish its presence in the Indian market, says Alagu Balaraman, CEO, Augmented SCM. “Earlier, people used to rely on carpenters for furnishing their homes; now, they prefer to buy ready-made furniture. The market is moving towards acceptability, making plenty of headroom for growth for these companies,” he says.

Ikea’s cautious expansion approach in a market like India where several local dynamics are at play, is tactful, analysts say. Devangshu Dutta, founder, Third Eyesight, says, “In the past, Western businesses have made the mistake of simply copy-pasting formats and strategies in emerging markets from their more developed markets.” He believes there is “nothing wrong” in being incremental while growing footprint. “There’s no sense in carpet-bombing the market with stores, when many may end up being loss-making or sub-optimal,” he adds.

Getting the product mix and pricing right would be key in realising the full potential of this market. Balaraman says Ikea will have to balance its global portfolio with what it is doing locally, and make sure it is profitable.

For the Ikea model to succeed, adequate demand-concentration is crucial, which is being currently provided by the bigger cities in India. Given its global popularity, the furniture giant, analysts say, is poised to see traction in the metros and tier I cities.

Source: financialexpress

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The reality behind Reliance’s retail rush

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September 28, 2020

Written By Mihir Dalal

Mumbai-based Jain, a computer science graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, usually orders groceries from BigBasket and sometimes from Dunzo. He said that he doesn’t plan to use JioMart again.

“A couple of my friends and relatives (in Mumbai and Kota) have also had similarly bad experiences. It doesn’t look like JioMart is ready for online groceries. Their operations and customer care teams weren’t in sync,” Jain said.

Since JioMart expanded to more than 200 cities this summer, scores of customers like Jain have complained about missing products, delayed deliveries and generally poor service. Still, industry executives say that while its service levels have been inconsistent, JioMart is registering similar order volumes to BigBasket, the largest e-grocer, on the back of aggressive marketing and discounts.

These volumes still comprise a small fraction of the overall business of Amazon India and Walmart-owned Flipkart, the two dominant online retailers. But that’s because JioMart is only selling groceries now; it plans to sell other products like fashion and electronics soon. It’s clear that after many years of talk and hype, Reliance, which owns India’s largest offline retail chain, is finally becoming a serious challenger to Amazon and Flipkart, as well as BigBasket and Grofers.

Still, industry executives, logistics firms, consultants and analysts that Mint spoke with said that Reliance will find it tough to break the dominance of Amazon-Flipkart in e-commerce, similar to how Walmart is struggling to challenge Amazon in digital sales in the US even as its stores continue to prosper. Amazon and Flipkart both have deep pockets, proven expertise in e-commerce, popular brands and good knowledge of the Indian market.

“Reliance has the financial muscle, but Walmart (Flipkart) and Amazon are no pushovers,” said Harminder Sahni, managing director, Wazir Advisors, a consultancy. “Today, most people who want to shop online are happy with Flipkart and Amazon. These companies have achieved significant scale and have very few weaknesses. As a latecomer, it will be very difficult for Reliance to make a big dent in the market.”

Reliance did not respond to an emailed questionnaire seeking comment.

Local internet powerhouse

During the pandemic, Reliance has not only moved fast to make inroads into the e-commerce market, it has also consolidated its leadership in organized offline retail. Last month, Reliance bought most of the businesses of Future Group for about $3.4 billion in a deal that will take its retail footprint to nearly 14,000 stores—by far, the largest in India.

In the past six months, Reliance has raised more than $21 billion for its digital unit Jio Platforms. This month, Reliance kickstarted a separate fund-raising spree for its retail unit, Reliance Retail, bagging about $1.8 billion from private equity firms Silver Lake and KKR, two of the investors in Jio. Several more investment firms, including other shareholders in Jio, are expected to join them.

These moves are part of Reliance’s efforts to transform itself into a 21stcentury digital behemoth. It is positioning itself as India’s answer to Amazon, Facebook, Google, Alibaba and other world-class digital giants, and unlike local startups like Flipkart, Ola and Paytm that have or had similar ambitions, Reliance enjoys some unparalleled advantages.

It is now accepted wisdom among politicians and regulators that India needs a ‘local’ internet powerhouse to counter the dominance of America’s Big Tech and the growing influence of Chinese firms, partly because of sovereignty concerns. Reliance’s mastery in lobbying and its political clout makes the firm best-placed to exploit this urgent establishment need to find a domestic internet powerhouse.

Amazon, Flipkart, Facebook and others face many policy-related restrictions that not only serve as obstacles to them but pave the way for domestic firms led by Reliance to enter the fray. For instance, foreign investment rules prevent Amazon and Flipkart from owning inventory or selling private labels (though critics say that these firms do it anyway using clever legal workarounds), while Reliance has no such constraints. Apart from a supportive policy environment and huge capital resources, on the business front, too, Reliance has an enviable digital distribution network and reservoir of customer data on account of Jio.

But despite these formidable advantages, Reliance has yet to prove that it has the chops to realise its ambitious vision.

The war among Reliance and Flipkart and Amazon and other internet firms is also not restricted to retail, but will extend to other sectors like financial services, content and business-to-business commerce. The technology-centric nature of the battle is more suited to the internet companies than to Reliance. There’s little doubt that Reliance will be a major player in the digital business, but the jury’s out on how much value the firm can corner. Its foray in e-commerce and B2B will provide early answers to this question.

Retail battle

After JioMart began testing its service late last year, media reports said that the company would deliver products to customers from local kirana stores. After Facebook invested in Jio in April in a deal that included a business partnership between JioMart and WhatsApp, Ambani said that JioMart would soon connect some 3 crore kirana stores with their neighbourhood customers.

Many analysts, too, expect the partnership with WhatsApp, the most popular app in India, to be a game-changer. In July, Goldman Sachs estimated that Reliance’s entry will help expand the online grocery market by 20 times to about $29 billion by 2024. Reliance’s partnership with Facebook could help the firm become the leader in e-grocery and garner a market share of more than 50% by 2024, Goldman said.

But Mint learns that Reliance is sourcing a majority of orders on JioMart in many cities through Reliance Retail’s supply chain; only a small number of orders are served through kirana stores. JioMart is signing up a few thousand kirana stores every month, but its expansion is happening at a slower rate than many analysts expect. Two industry executives said that JioMart’s average order value is lower than that of other e-grocers, which means that Reliance is losing larger amounts of money on every order.

According to one e-commerce executive, for BigBasket and Grofers, the delivery cost is about 3-4% of the average order value, which exceeds ₹1000. For Reliance, the delivery cost is presently much higher because its order value is below ₹800. The lower order value is partly because most of JioMart’s 200 city-markets are non-metros. BigBasket and others generate an overwhelming majority of their business from the metros. Reliance is betting on expanding the e-grocery market rather, than taking market share from incumbents, which generate an overwhelming majority of their sales from 10-15 cities. But while Reliance may be able to attract customers in smaller cities initially with discounts, profitability will be tough.

“The economics of serving metros are very different from the rest of India. In the mass market, bill values are much, much lower. Right now, Reliance’s main focus is to scale JioMart, so they aren’t worried about the delivery cost,” the executive cited above said. “But eventually, reality will catch up, and they will have to increase basket sizes because this model isn’t sustainable. Grocery has very thin margins to start with. “

Private label push

One obvious way for Reliance to boost margins is by selling more private label products. In the grocery category, Reliance Retail already generates 14% of its revenues from private labels. People familiar with Reliance’s plans said that the company wants to push its private label products to kirana stores. While there are hundreds of well-known brands in FMCG, the grocery category (products like rice, pulses and flour) is largely unstructured. Reliance plans to sell its private label products both in grocery and FMCG.

Apart from retail, Reliance is also rapidly expanding its B2B business. Its private label products form a key component of its retail and wholesale business plans, the people cited above said.

The private label push, however, is making large FMCG companies like Hindustan Unilever, Marico and Dabur, which sell competing products, wary of working with Reliance’s B2B arm.

Like Flipkart and Amazon, which are also expanding their B2B businesses, Reliance’s grand vision over time is to have an integrated ecosystem of wholesale and retail in which it connects consumer goods makers with kirana stores and retailers, supplies a large number of private label products across many categories to retailers and end-customers, and becomes the biggest omnichannel retail firm in the country. But realising this vision will require Reliance to work seamlessly with millions of kirana stores, thousands of brands, modern retailers (all of which will see the firm as a rival to an extent)—and provide exceptional service in a profitable manner to retail customers.

Analysts and industry executives said that Reliance has a higher probability of finding success in categories like fashion (in which it already runs a portal called Ajio) and grocery that are mostly unorganised and have a shortage of established brands. In these categories, Reliance faces fewer barriers from existing players and has a better chance of pushing its private labels in both the wholesale and retail markets. But in categories like electronics and FMCG, which are dominated by entrenched brands, kirana stores and e-commerce firms, Reliance may struggle to scale as fast.

For instance, Flipkart and Amazon dominate online sales of electronics and fashion, which together comprise more than 75% of all e-commerce. To win significant share in electronics, Reliance will have to spend enormous amounts on discounts, marketing and offering favourable terms to brands . But, in fashion, Reliance can tap its low-priced private labels to lure customers without resorting to value destruction.

“The market is too varied for one player to be big in all categories,” an investment banker said. “Reliance will have to carefully choose its battles. There’s a risk that it may spread itself too thin, so it’s wise for them to have started with grocery.”

Meanwhile, while Google and Facebook have together invested more than $10 billion in Reliance, both companies are continuing to expand their own businesses in India. Google and Facebook have ambitions to enter e-commerce and expand in other sectors like payments and content. What this means is that while Google and Facebook will end up collaborating with Reliance in some areas, they will also compete with the firm in others, joining Flipkart and Amazon in the war of the digital conglomerates.

Flipkart and Amazon have already stepped up their lobbying efforts with the emergence of Reliance as a threat. Because of the pandemic that has made e-commerce indispensable, there has been a thaw in the government’s attitude towards the US e-commerce firms. A more antagonistic attitude may return when the pandemic passes.

Eventually, though, the war will be decided by customers. Here, experts are divided on whether Reliance will emerge as the winner. “Reliance still has to do a lot more on getting the customer experience in place, but given the strides they’ve made, it is well-placed to compete in the digital space,” said Devangshu Dutta, head of retail consultancy firm Third Eyesight.

Source: livemint

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COVID-19: Medical devices need your attention

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March 25, 2020

T. Surendar, The Morning Context

25 March 2020

Standing on the porch of the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Mumbai suburbs, Diwakar Vaish, co-founder of Noida-based AgVa Healthcare, was trying to catch the attention of software industry executives. This is at the annual conference hosted by IT trade body Nasscom. Vaish’s stall was a side-show for startups to exhibit digital technologies in the healthcare sector.

On a cool, breezy February day, the atmosphere was nothing as grim you would expect in a hospital emergency ward. Vaish’s rig, comprising an iPad-like device on a short steel column mounted on wheels with dangling wires, was a cost-effective version of a ventilator used in critical care. There wasn’t much excitement about his solution, as few executives really understood the medical problem he aimed to solve.

Today, a robotic engineer by training, Vaish is super busy.

It is not easy to get him on the phone, as AgVa’s ventilator is suddenly in demand from all parts of the country. The company is running three shifts fulfilling orders, which have been pouring in since it became apparent that Indian hospitals did not have enough ventilators for patients rendered ill by the novel coronavirus.

Unwittingly, the need for ventilators has once again drawn attention to India’s medical devices industry or the lack of it. So much so that Anand Mahindra, chairman of the $17 billion Mahindra group, which has interests in automobiles, software and resorts, said that he was finding ways to manufacture ventilators in his factories. It isn’t easy putting together a ventilator, not when you are racing against time, but Mahindra is a hardy businessman with deep pockets, and maybe, just maybe, he will succeed.

In many ways, the Indian medical devices industry is an anomaly. India has a space programme, a nuclear programme, it is among the few countries that has developed patented medicines and a low cost version of anything from power turbines to trucks but when it comes to medical equipment, it fares poorly.

India is also the biggest supplier of FDA-approved drugs to the US, the biggest pharmaceutical market in the world. Even as the Indian market for medical equipment has grown at double-digit rates in the last five years to Rs 1 lakh crore, two-thirds of its needs are met by foreign companies such as Philips, GE Healthcare, Siemens and Abbott.

Import domination is all pervasive extending to even non-critical but common equipment like sonography machines, dentistry chairs and diagnostic equipment. Less than five Indian companies had revenue of more than Rs 500 crore a year and 90% were classified as small scale, with annual revenue less than Rs 10 crore. The biggest player in the domestic market is the Rs 1,300 crore Mumbai-based Transasia Bio-Medicals, which makes in vitro diagnostic solutions that are exported to Western markets too.

“For a long time, the government was the biggest buyer of medical equipment and they always preferred imported equipment. That meant that it was not lucrative for local entrepreneurs to invest their capital in the sector,” says G.S.K. Velu, managing director of Trivitron Healthcare, which makes and exports imaging equipment.

The proliferation of private hospitals in the last two decades also did not change things much. With well-entrenched foreign players and a liberal import duty structure to make available the best facilities in India, there were few local companies of scale who could invest big money to fend off competition. AgVa’s ventilators were priced at a fifth of the ones sold by the foreign competitors, yet it couldn’t make inroads into big hospitals. “It’s almost as if our cost was our barrier to sell. Being critical equipment, customers had a lot of inertia to even place test orders,” says Vaish.

Thanks to meagre domestic manufacturing. India also could not set standards of equipment specifications to suit the local needs. It had to tweak its own equipment standards to fall in line with those of foreign manufacturers. For example, in the US, defibrillators used to restore heartbeats by giving shock to patients had to last at least two shock cycles. But, in India, since access to hospitals and medical care was not as easy. patients arrive long after they have suffered heart attacks and Indian doctors use defibrillators for even 10 cycles at a time.

The local standards did not specify this need and as a result many imported defibrillators were not of much use in Indian conditions. “We still don’t have an act to regulate medical devices and it falls under the drugs category. Everything is still borrowed from the West,” says Aniruddha Atre, co-founder and director of Pune-based Jeevtronics Pvt. Ltd, which makes the world’s first hand-cranked defibrillator.

Trivitron’s Velu says that the share of locally produced medical equipment will increase within the next decade. This will be a combination of help from the government which will enforce more domestic manufacturing by overseas firms and increased entrepreneurship.

There is also a view that more global manufacturing will come to India, as firms de-risk their strategy of manufacturing everything in China. “In the past, when labour costs went up in the Chinese west coast, Indian garment companies were beneficiaries of increased orders even though other countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam too got a big share of it. The availability of labour and ability to scale up operations is something global players look for and to that extent India will always be an important outsourcing destination,” said Devangshu Dutta, managing partner at consultancy firm Third Eyesight.

The trend started even before the COVID-19 pandemic as companies in the US began to brace themselves for a trade war with China. For example, a US-based company has started sourcing Indian tyres at a 10-15% premium as it wants to diversify its risk from China. “India has witnessed a surge in mobile phone manufacturing. This is bound to increase the ecosystem in electronic manufacturing which in turn create ecosystems for industries like medical equipment,” says Sharad Verma, senior partner who oversees industrials at Boston Consulting Group.

The timing is also right for increase in local manufacturing, argues Verma. One of the important criteria for that is viable domestic consumption. It’s happened time and again in sectors like automobiles, mobile phones and more recently in manufacture of metro bogies after domestic consumption has reached a scale where it makes sense for companies to set up manufacturing facilities. “The industry is no longer small and the incidence of medical technology will only go up from here making it viable for even foreign companies to look at a manufacturing set up in India,” says Verma.

It will be interesting to see how it all plays out. The sector, so far, hasn’t seen much by way of private equity or venture investment. The most prominent one was an investment by a Morgan Stanley fund and Samara Capital in Surat-based Sahajanand Medical Technologies and Fidelity Growth Partners’s investment in Trivitron. But starting 2014, a government fund run by the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council-incubated several companies who are slowly bringing their products to market. As some of these products hit home, especially in the wake of COVID-19, the action is definitely bound to pick up.

(published in The Morning Context)