Mahindra Powerol to add 7,000 dealer selling points in FY13

CHENNAI: Power solution provider Mahindra Powerol, part of the Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd, plans to add 7,000 dealer selling points across the country by this financial year.

"Our first plan is to consolidate our operations in the six states we are operating now...then we will focus on how to expand into other states..", Mahindra Powerol Division, Senior Vice-President (Business Head) P Palaniappan told reporters here.

Unveiling new higher range Home UPS models with a capacity of 2.5kVA, 3.5kVA and 5kVA each, he said the company currently had about 2,000 dealers in Tamil Nadu and a total of 1,000 in Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Bihar.

Mahindra Powerol Head-HUPS business Narendra Goyal put the company's market share in Tamil Nadu at about 15 per cent. The overall industry size of inverter market was four million units per annum, he said, adding it was growing at a CAGR of 10-12 per cent year-on-year.

"Our plan is to have 10,000 selling points through dealers by this financial year...", he said.

The company currently has three manufacturing facilities in Padappai (near Chennai), Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh with a total capacity of 65,000 units per month (Home UPS).

In the Padappai plant, the company also manufactures diesel gensets. The company outsourced the components for the products and assembles in these facilities, he said.

The company also launched Mahindra Powerol branded batteries for the UPS. It would also help customer to get a single window service for both HUPS and batteries, Goyal said.

Currently, Mahindra outsources the batteries from a US based company, which has a manufacturing facility in Allahabad.

Declining to reveal the name of the company, Goyal said, "it is like contract manufacturing. We tell our requirements to them and they manufacture and sell it to us."

Presently, there are four series of inverters available from Mahindra stable -- Eco, Eco-plus, Hi-speed and Intelli. The price of the newly launched inverters range from Rs 20,000 to Rs 35,000 excluding batteries, he added.