BANGALORE, Aug 25: Betting big on Indian agriculture mechanisation market, US-headquartered Briggs & Stratton plans to aggressively expand capacity at its Coimbatore plant, eyeing a sales turnover of USD 50 million in three years.
Company officials said the New York Stock Exchange-listed firm, the world’s largest producer of air-cooled gasoline engines for outdoor power equipment, had sales of USD 2 million in 2011-12 in India.
Briggs & Stratton, which had global revenues of USD 2.1 billion last year, acquired Coimbatore-based Premier Power Products in a USD 3 million deal last year.
The company targeted at small and marginal farmers in India has a range of products, including weeders, tillers, and transplanters.
The company currently has a capacity to manufacture 7,800 units, which would be scaled up to 22,000 by 2015-16, by which time it’s targeting annual sales turnover of USD 50 million.
“One of India’s great challenges in the next 50 years will be a transformation in the efficiency of its agriculture sector to support the growth of urban development, as the global economy opens up for the Indian entrepreneur”, Briggs & Stratton’s Managing Director (Europe, the Middle East and African region) Roger Jann told reporters here.
“India will need more food but with significantly less manual labour and more productivity”, he said.
Jann said the company is looking at inorganic growth in India as well, eyeing acquisition of small and mid-sized companies making agriculture and construction equipment and generators.
It also hoped to manufacture diesel engines in India within a year. (PTI)
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