Banks on cotton and groundnut crop to boost sales

With the launch of its 'Jai Kisan Series' of tractors, Escorts Ltd, expects to double its sales in Gujarat this fiscal. For this, the company has developed specialised tractors to suit specific farming needs.

The company clocked over 130 per cent growth in Gujarat in 2010-11, selling around 3,500-4,000 tractors in the state. "The overall tractor market in Gujarat grew by 90 per cent last fiscal thanks to good crop and higher prices. We, however, did better than the industry growth rate here," said Rohtash Mal, executive director and chief executive officer, Escorts Agri Machinery Group. Nationally, the company clocked a 19-20 per cent sales growth overall. Escorts sold close to 66,000 units across the country between April 2010 and March 2011.

This year, with the launch of the new series, Escorts hopes to maintain the robust growth rate in Gujarat. "We are targeting to grow by 20-22 per cent nationally, and hope to grow by 100 per cent in Gujarat," Mal said.

"We believe that if we develop specialised products for specialised applications then it would help us grow faster. Moving away from the traditional way of segmenting consumer and market in terms of horse-power, we have come up with a range of product offerings that suit the requirement of the farmer specific to his soil and crop requirements," Mal said.

The new Jai Kisan Series has five products, ValueMaxx, LoadMaxx, AgMaxx, InfraMaxx and SuperMaxx. Of these, while the Valuemaxx is the variant for basic agricultural purposes, Loadmaxx and Agmaxx variants specialise in haulage-based applications and specialised agri-applications respectively. The Supermaxx series is ideal for all types of agriculture and non-farming purposes besides offering add-on applications for dual needs whereas the Inframaxx variant specialises in infrastructure-based applications.

Mal explained that the requirements of a potato farmer and that of a wheat cultivator in Punjab are very different. "While it will be too expensive to design a single machine that would address all the requirements, we have tried to develop machines that would find specific usage. We are calling it, 'Kaam jaisa, tractor waisa'. It took us over a year to develop these products," he added.

The company is expecting cotton and groundnut farming applications to evolve as major segments that would drive sales of the Jai Kisan range. Cotton acreage is likely to go up by around 5-10 per cent in the next cotton year (October-September) from 11.16 million hectares in 2010-11 to around 18-20 million hectares in 2011-12. While the compounded annual growth rate of cotton acreage over the last five years has been in the range of 5-8 per cent, cotton acreage has grown by eight per cent in 2010-11 over 2009-10. In comparison, the overall grains acreage has grown by 2-4 per cent.

Escorts has already launched the Jai Kisan Series in Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat, and is now spreading to other areas including Madhya Pradesh, eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.