Osram mulls second facility in India

Bullish on the Indian market, the 4.3 billion euro German lighting major plans to set up a second manufacturing plant in India.

Bullish on the Indian market, the 4.3 billion euro German lighting major Osram plans to set up a second manufacturing plant in the country.

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"India is one of the high growth areas in our Asian initiative and we want to strengthen our manufacturing capability in the country," Osram GmbH president Martin Goetzeler said.

The company's fully owned Indian subsidiary, which has a manufacturing facility at Sonepat in Haryana had a turnover of around Rs 200 crore last year and Goetzeler said the Indian operations were expected to record a CAGR of 20 per cent till 2015.

He said the company was looking at "several options" for its new manufacturing facility in India, which also included going in for a greenfield plant in the country.

"We are currently studying it," he said though refusing to specify proposed investments in the country.

Asked what kind of price benefits India offered in comparison to regions like America and Europe, he said the country offered "significant cost advantages" in labour.

"However, even as India offers price advantages in the labour front there is competition within the Asian region itself," he said.

Apart from India, Osram has eight other manufacturing facility in the Asian region. These include three in China, one in Indonesia, two in Japan and one in Korea. Osram GmbH is a group company of German major Siemens AG.