Tailwinds to the economy will help us to come back in a big way: Anil Rai Gupta, Havells

The slowdown in industrial and real estate demand had an impact on other businesses like switch care, cables and wires, says Anil Rai Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director, Havells. In a chat with Abhishek Satyavratam said, liquidity crunch will have an impact on small businesses like trade, contractors and small builders. Excerpts: 

Q: The company has posted weak results and there is a slowdown in the electronic consumer durables. What can be a reason for this decline and slowdown?
A: The slowdown in the industrial and real estate demand has affected other businesses such as switch care, cables and wires. The Professional Luminaires and the lighting segments also depend on the government offtakes and our growth in the lighting segment was good as we were focused on the B2B model.

The other businesses were affected due to the liquidity and NBFC’s crisis while we also feel we were able to grab some market share in all the businesses as our distribution reach has gone deeper into smaller urban towns, semi-urban towns and rural areas. We have mixed feelings as we are making improvements on the structural side and arrival of more tailwinds to the economy would help us in coming in a big way. 

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Q: Slowdown in construction activity had an impact on your results. Can you provide any expected timeline for the revival of the sector?
A: If, we have a look at the real estate sector than it was going through a slowdown for the past few years, but we were progressing in the domain and were gaining the market share. So, we are not waiting for complete revival in the real estate sector. I think the existing liquidity crunch in the market will have an impact on small businesses like trade, contractors and small builders among others and till then it will be difficult to return in tailwinds.

Otherwise, I have said that the company has performed well despite a slowdown in the real estate sector. So, we should be looking for recovery very soon in this business.