NEW DELHI: JSW Paints, a part of the USD 14-billion JSW Group, is ramping up investments in the home hygiene space as it aims to disrupt the Rs 50,000-crore domestic paints market. Led by Parth Jindal, son of industrialist Sajjan Jindal, the relatively new entrant in the paints industry has launched a new range of products such as antibacterial paints to take on rivals such as Asian Paints and Berger Paints.
With new launches and expansion of distribution network, the company aims to clock a revenue of Rs 2,500 crore over the next three years, A S Sundaresan, Joint MD and CEO, JSW Paints tells New Indian Express in an interview. Excerpts:
What makes your new launches in the hygiene space different from competitors?
JSW Paints has launched antibacterial paint called JSW Paints Halo Safe Home. While it is true that a few other players are also present in the segment, those paints are just for walls. Our range of antibacterial paints are for all three surfaces – wall, wood and metals. Priced at Rs. 300-350 a litre, the Halo Safe Home are also 15-20 per cent cheaper than other products available in the market.
Going forward, we will invest aggressively in the personal hygiene space as we are already beginning to see more demand towards such products. We have also entered the hand sanitiser market and to begin with, we are leveraging our group businesses' retail distribution to market the product. For now, we are manufacturing sanitisers at our plant in Vasind, Maharashtra but working to make the other plant at Vijaynagar in Karnataka also capable of manufacturing sanitisers. It should be up and running in the next 3-4 months.
How has COVID-19 impacted your business and when do you expect demand to pick up?
While business activity remained muted in the last 2-3 months, we expect demand to come back around the festive season i.e. in another 3-4 months. This would be fuelled by consumer spending on home renovation around Diwali, even if it is not as strong as pre-COVID seasons.
In terms of cost, we aren’t seeing a major change in consumer behaviour as it is the cost of the application that forms a significant part of the painting bill. As markets open up, the spending pattern, however, is seen to have shifted towards a better quality in terms of safety, hygiene rather than just low-cost products.
Please tell us about JSW Paints' overall growth plans.
We have set ourselves a target of achieving five per cent market share in southern and western regions of India over the next three years. As for new markets, we are looking at entering Gujarat in the next 2-3 months and foraying into the northern and eastern regions as well in three years’ time. We began with a small base in April 2019, but now our paints business is growing at a healthy rate which calls for expansion.
We plan to double our distribution network by taking the retailers’ count to 2,000 by March and treble the number of contractors which stands at 6,000. With this, we hope the paints division will fetch a revenue of about Rs. 2,500 crore by 2024, driven by in-home consumption of decorative paints.