Berger Paints, the country’s second-largest paints company, is not worried about the entry of Birla Opus in the market and hopes to double turnover to Rs 20,000 crore by FY29 from Rs 10,000 crore in standalone revenue in FY24, Abhijit Roy, MD & CEO, Berger Paints India, said on Monday.
The company also expects to boost its value growth to 5% in the September quarter, while maintaining volume growth at 10%, he said.
Roy was speaking after the company’s 100th annual general meeting held in Kolkata. The firm told shareholders it would add 25-30% additional capacity in the next two years with two new plants—one at Panagarh in West Bengal and the other at Odisha. The combined investment in the two plants would be Rs 2,000 crore.
“Competition is part of the paints industry in India. It is a competitive market where you had MNCs earlier. Now, you have a few local players, of which Birla is a serious player. But there is nothing to worry. We remain confident of gaining 0.5-0.6% market share annually as we have over the last four years,” he said at the media interaction. Berger Paints has a share of around 20.9% to Asian Paints’ around 45-50% in decorative paints, according to market experts.
The company also plans to close down its Howrah plant in West Bengal and convert it into a larger R&D centre by the end of 2025, once the greenfield Panagarh facility in West Bengal becomes operational.
“We achieved a volume growth of 11.8% in the June quarter of FY25, but value growth was just 2.5% due to factors like price decreases, reduced raw material costs, and a slowdown in the luxury paints segment in West Bengal and Kerala,” he said.
Roy also said increased urbanisation and the focus of the government on infrastructure development would help spur sales of paints and ancillary segments such as waterproofing and construction chemicals in the mid to long term.
“Urbanisation is about 35% in India at the moment. Consumption of paints will increase as urbanisation improves to levels of about 50-55%. There is a big runway for growth,” Roy said.
While the domestic paints market, about Rs 75,000 crore in size, was impacted by heatwaves, elections and a slowdown in states such West Bengal and Kerala in the first quarter of FY25, paint majors expect the industry to revive in the second half of FY25, led by the festive season and moderate price hikes.
Since June, Berger has taken three price hikes to the tune of 2.5%, Roy said, which is expected to improve value growth in the current fiscal. Part of it, Roy said, was to neutralise the impact of raw material prices which increased by 1.5%.
Additionally, Roy highlighted that its Polish international operation, Bolix, is performing well despite energy shortages in Europe following the Ukraine war.
Meanwhile, operations in Nepal are expected to improve this year after struggling for the last two years.