Hafele, an international company that offers furniture fittings, architectural hardware, electronic locking systems and technical hardware advice, expects to double its revenue to over ₹500 crore over the next two years in India. The company entered India in 2001 as a liaison office to handle hospitality projects for its line of Access Control Systems and then started full commercial operations in 2003 as a wholly owned subsidiary – Hafele India Pvt Ltd. It now has offices in all major metros and sales presence across the country with 60 franchise partners and 400 dealers.

Jurgen Wolf, Managing Director, Hafele India, spoke to BusinessLine about the company’s range of products and the built-in kitchen appliance market in India, among others. Edited excerpts:

What is your available product range for India and what is your newest offering?

The overall product range consists of more than 10,000 articles stored in over 12,000 locations within the premise of our logistics and distribution centres.

These articles are maintained in constant inventory, ready to be shipped to our customer base across the country. We release over 200 orders on a daily basis.

Our products are in the areas of architectural hardware, furniture, kitchen fittings and accessories and we also have a strong presence in synergised product categories such as, appliances, lights and sanitary.

Our latest launch is the second edition of our hi-tech line-up of built-in kitchen appliances, the Nagold J-series, at the Indian Kitchen Congress. Hafele is very active in the kitchen business, which is our core competency with almost 50 per cent of our business coming from this business.

What is Hafele’s addressable market for built-in kitchen business in India?

India’s estimated ₹25,000-crore home appliances market has grown at 25 per cent year-on-year.

However, the built-in appliance market in India is still at a very nascent stage, it is yet to catch up with other parts of Asia, be it Singapore or Malaysia.

But we are going forward and the market is increasing at 25-30 per cent in the built-in kitchen business in India.

The current market size is around ₹750 crore and will grow to be a big business in India over the next 5-10 years.

What are your expansion plans for 2015-16?

By the end of 2016, we want to increase the base of our traditional formats to 100 outlets with more focus on the Design Studios and Kitchen Studios.

We are looking forward to great collaboration in the contemporary franchise format and are also open to partnering with existing as well as newer small, medium kitchen retailers in focused markets, displaying two or more kitchens with Hafele’s components.

We would be the endorsing brand for such small kitchen partners with necessary investment in product displays, marketing and operational know-how.

Hafele will also contribute by way of its shop design know-how in case of new partners.

For our appliances business, we are aiming to penetrate the market with the Nagold range and have planned to open 10 exclusive Nagold Galleries this year in major metros and expand our reach in the country.

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