Bengaluru, Jan 16 (IANS) Global furniture major Herman Miller Asia Pacific Vice-President Kartik Shethia on Thursday said that India has emerged as a top market for the company clocking $50 million sales annually.
“India is the top market among 18 countries in the Asia Pacific region for Herman Miller. A good number of our clients include multinational companies operating in India,” Shethia said, referring to the company whose majority sales are coming through the business to business route (B2B).
He said the company will concentrate on business to consumer (B2C) retail in the future, even as it invests a huge amount of money in creating a future-ready digital front end.
Major buyers for the company in India include Reliance Industries, Reliance Jio, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, among others.
For Herman Miller, the India market has been the fastest growing in the last two years.
Shethia said the Herman Miller product portfolio in India ranges between Rs 60,000 to Rs 4.5 lakhs.
Production at the company’s only factory at Bidadi in Karnataka has risen by 83 per cent in 2019 and is expected to touch 100 per cent growth this year, Shethia said.
Herman Miller International President Jeremy Hocking said 70 per cent of the company’s products being sold in India are made at the Bidadi facility.
Hocking said Herman Miller has a global revenue of $2.7 billion and is focusing on both organic and inorganic growth.
Though the company is planning expand its presence in India in the form of a second factory, Shethia said no decision had been so far. He also said, however, that the second factory would also be located in Karnataka.
According to Hocking, the Make in India programme has benefited the company, greatly matching its strategy when it started its production facility in India in 2015.
On Thursday, Herman Miller launched Atlas Office Landscape Workstation and Cosm chiar in India, on the back of throwing open 2,500 sq ft of office in Bengaluru to align its India office with other geographies in terms of design, IT, research and development, finance, among others.
Herman Miller currently employs 400 people in India. It added 81 people in 2019.
–IANS
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