Johnson Lifts hopes to retain its prominent position in the escalator market in India, supported by own manufacturing that it believes will provide an edge over the competitors.

The Chennai-headquartered company sees robust order book for the escalator business driven by the Metro rail projects and upgradation of railway stations across the country.

“Escalator business is growing in a big way. The Railways alone offers huge potential in the near term as the Ministry has planned to improve amenities in all the railway stations. With these plans, they will require 4,000 escalators by 2020,” V Jagannathan, Executive Director, Johnson Lifts, told BusinessLine .

Johnson Lifts has already installed 175 escalators in about 75 stations and is also in the process of installing 200 more soon.

Metro rail is another segment that has been spurring the growth of escalator business. For eg., there is a requirement for about 1,000 escalators in Metro stations for 2017 alone.

Demand is likely to stay robust as every city with a population of 15-20 lakh is expected to build a Metro project.

There have been little over 2,500 escalators installed across Metro stations so far and Johnson accounts for about 900 units holding close to 36 per cent share.

“With strong order outlook, size of escalator market (annual installations) has the potential to double every year in India,” he said.

Yohan K John, Director of the company, pointed out that Johnson was the only company to make escalators in India, while the rest were importing, mostly from China. Its full-fledged escalator factory is located at Oragadam near Chennai.

Heavy duty escalators “We have been manufacturing light-type escalators (meant for malls and big textile shops) since 2009, while production of heavy duty escalators meant for Metros, railway stations and foot over bridges started recently,” he added.

The escalator market size (new annual sales) is estimated at about 1,500 units in India, which is seen as the second largest elevator and escalator market after China, where the annual sales is about 50,000 units.

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