NEW DELHI: Three years after first expressed his intention to enter the decorative paint business, billionaire industrialist and Aditya Birla Group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla is sure that his paint brand ‘Birla Opus’ will disrupt the highly competitive sector by the sheer size of their manufacturing capability and having pan India presence in record time.
The Mumbai-based conglomerate is eyeing the second spot in the paint market whose size currently is pegged at Rs 80,000 crore. Birla expects his Opus brand to clock Rs 10,000 crore revenue in three years which would also make the company profitable.
“I don’t know something of this scale has ever been attempted in the paint sector…In just the first year, we will be adding 40% of the existing industry capacity. Our capacity will be more than the combined capacity of number 2, 3 and 4 players combined,” said a confident Birla who believes that despite growing competition there is enough room for everyone. Birla Opus expects to exit financial year 2024-25 with a high single-digit market share.
As per the latest industry estimate, Asian Paints leads the Indian paints industry business with more than 50% market share, followed by Berger Paints and Kansai Nerolac. In recent years, the paint industry has also seen the entry of another conglomerate, the JSW Group.
Aditya Birla Group whose business interest ranges from cement, aluminium and copper to retail fashion and asset management, is investing Rs 10,000 crore in paint business. This is being funded by internal accruals of parent firm Grasim Industries and through debt.
Birla on Thursday commissioned three plants located in -- Panipat (Haryana), Ludhiana (Punjab) and Cheyyar (Tamil Nadu). The remaining three -- Chamarajanagar (Karnataka), Mahad (Maharashtra) and Kharagpur (West Bengal) units will commence operations over the course of FY25. The six facilities will have a total capacity of 1,332 million litres per annum. The company also has plans to increase capacity by 500 MLPA over the next five years.
Birla Opus products will be available in Punjab, Haryana and Tamil Nadu from mid-March and in towns with populations of at least 100,000 by July 2024. The Group’s market leadership in the cement and putty business is likely to play a major role in establishing its reach.