Addressing a press conference in the city, managing director P Ganeshan said the company, a market leader in the manufacture of sandal soaps, is also diversifying its product range which includes incense sticks and babycare products.

"KS&DL hopes to keep up the tempo of growth and success by continuing its strategic diversification and expansion plans in the current year. This would be by broad-basing our product portfolio while banking on core strengths," the managing director said.

About the eastern region, Ganeshan said: "This area after the south has the true potential for sandal products. We are pegging ambitious sales targets of Rs 18 crore for the current year for this part of the country.Moreover, the eastern region has an intrinsic potential for agarbattis."

For the year ended March 1999, the region had yielded sales worth Rs 8 crore. Of this, sales of 17 lakh of agarbattis were made every month, compared to just about two lakh the previous year. "Seeing this trend, we have set a sales target of a crore every month for just agarbattis in the eastern region," Ganeshan said.

The company's total sales in the year 1998-99 was Rs 123 crore with a net profit of Rs 20.2 crore. It also received ISO-9002 certification in 1998-99.

According to Ganeshan, the total market for agarbattis is about Rs 1500 crore which is largely dominated by the unorganised sector. Out of this almost 40 per cent of this is made in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, while 20-25 per cent is from the eastern region."The distinct advantage that the company has is in terms of a distinct dealer network which is strong and we hope to increase this to further our reach," said Ganeshan. "We have gone in for an integrated marketingstrategy in each state, where we meet with stockists, dealers to discuss various marketing programmes and try to solve the same," he added.

The company also plans to go in for major exports in the current year.