Toshiba in joint lift

by Shrutee Kate

Business/Investment/Construction

Toshiba in joint lift venture with Indian firm

Mumbai, Oct 28:  India is a key market for Toshiba Corporation’s global expansion plans as its economic growth is set to outstrip that of China, according to Shinichiro Akiba, President and Chief Executive Officer, Toshiba Elevator and Building Systems Corporation.

Akiba said, in the last three years Toshiba has aggressively expanded its presence in India across its range of businesses including personal computers, appliances and semiconductors.

In line with that, Toshiba Elevator, which launched an Indian subsidiary last year has clocked bookings for over a 100 high-end, high-speed elevators. It has now tied up with the largest elevator company in India, Johnson Lifts, to grow this business.

Yesterday it announced a joint venture, Toshiba Johnson Elevators (India) Pvt Ltd with the Indian partner holding a 49 per cent stake and Toshiba 51 per cent in Mumbai. The partners have brought in about Rs 50 crore initially.

Akiba, who went around Johnson Lifts’ production facility at Poonamallee, about 25 km to the west of Chennai, said Toshiba plans to focus on its niche in high-end elevators with Johnson handling the marketing, installation and maintenance. Johnson will also continue with production of its standard types. The partnership thus complements both businesses, he said.

Initial focus will be on sales and marketing but eventually Toshiba hopes to start, engineering, development and manufacturing, he said. The Japanese company has two production plants in China and one in Malaysia which will cater to the Indian market.

John K. John, Chairman and Managing Director, Johnson Lifts, said the tie-up gives Johnson a reach to the full spectrum of elevator business from top end to the mass market segment. Johnson is also the only escalator manufacturer in India and is rapidly expanding its production.

Next April it will start operations at a 1.5 lakh sq ft elevator factory, its second in Chennai, at Oragadam where it now has a 90,000 sq ft factory for escalators. It has a third elevator unit in Nagpur giving it a total production capacity of about 6,500 elevators. Last year it sold 8,200 elevators with the business around Rs 1,000 crore.