Shibaura Machine India Pvt. Ltd. Managing Director M. Kumar, Shibaura Machine Group Japan President Shigetomo Sakamoto and CFO, Hiroaki Ota at the inauguration of Unit two near Chennai.
Shibaura Machine India Pvt. Ltd. (SMI) aims to increase exports and revenue by almost four-fold in the next five years with the expansion of its existing facility in Chennai, said Managing Director M. Kumar.
“Today, we inaugurated the unit 2 factory at Chembarambakkam. It is built at an investment of ₹225 crore, plus another ₹50 crore for land acquisition,” Mr. Kumar said during a press interaction.
According to him, the company’s manufacturing capacity is set to rise in phases – from 1,200 to 4,000 machines in three-five years. About 90% of production is consumed by domestic firms, while the rest are imported to more than 45 countries. Plans are on to increase the export contribution from 10% to 25% by restarting exports to the U.S. and EU countries and to take the revenue to ₹2,000 crore in five years.
“In the next 3-4 years, the company is expected to create new jobs, increase the team size. In addition, 50 MSME vendors will be developed to support the capacity expansion. Currently, we have a vendor base of 150,” he said.
Asserting that SMI has a 20% market share in India, he said that with the expanded capacity they would try to maintain the 20% market share or increase it by 2-3%.
Shibaur Machine Group President Shigetomo Sakamoto said that India has been a strategic investment destination for the company. “The Indian market is set to grow bigger and we would like to use the opportunity by leveraging SMI expertise.”
SMI is a fully owned subsidiary of Japan-based Shibaura Machine, the leading manufacturer of hi-precision injection moulding machines in the world and it reported a turnover of ₹500 crore last fiscal.
Shibaura Machine entered India in 2012 by acquiring 100% stake in L&T Plastics Machinery Ltd. It was incorporated as Toshiba Machine Chennai Pvt. Ltd and in 2020 it was renamed as SMIPL.
