Footwear major Liberty walks in to ceramic sanitary wares market

19 Sep '05

3 min read

Liberty, the fifth largest footwear manufacturer in the world, has set up a Rs 50 crore state-of-the-art project at Neemrana (Rajasthan) to produce international quality ceramic sanitary wares in technical collaboration with SACMI Imola of Italy.

Trial production from the project is scheduled to begin from Wednesday, September 14, 2005 and the final products will reach the market during coming festival season.

The project, which is expandable to more than Rs.100 crore in three years, will manufacture Wash Basins, WC Bowls, Bidets, Shower Trays and Ceramic Accessories under Liberty Whiteware brand with all quality certifications in place. These products will also conform to high quality European standards, Mr. Adarsh Gupta, CEO Liberty Whiteware said.

“The diversification comes in the wake of a rising demand-supply gap in the sanitary ware products industry, which is expected to increase to 98000 MT by 2007. The move is also an attempt to leverage the number one domestic footwear brand from a single product segment to multiple value added segments like ceramic sanitary ware etc,” Mr.Gupta added.

Liberty Whiteware project is implemented in a record time of 10 months and is expected to achieve its break even point (BEP) in the first year of commercial operations itself with an expected turnover of Rs. 50 crore. The targeted turnover from the project is Rs. 200 crore in the fifth year of commercial operations.

In India, the annual domestic market for ceramic sanitary ware products is at around Rs 700 crore, growing at an annual growth rate of 10-12 per cent. Out of this, the organized market is valued at Rs 300 crore, growing at 16% p.a., which is more than the growth in the unorganized sector.

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