India’s growing longevity packaging boosts Eka Global’s business
Eka Global, a leading longevity packaging producer, is confident of achieving this year’s 10-15% growth target, driven by the opening of its new plant in India. The increasing production capacity enables the company to cope with the rising Indian food and sweet industry whose growth has doubled due to higher domestic consumption in India.
Mr. Chaiwat Nantiruj, Group CEO, Eka Global, disclosed that India’s longevity packaging market has been growing quickly, presenting immense opportunity for food producers. During the first six months this year, the market has already doubled its size from last year.
Key growth drivers are the rapid economic growth in India that draws more foreign investment and income into the country. India is currently one of the most promising economy with significant 7% GDP growth per annum during the past 10 years. In the first quarter alone, the country saw 7.76% economic expansion, and this trend continues strong.
“While global economy is dull, Chinese economy slows down, and many new markets are facing high uncertainty and investment risks, India becomes the rising star. Its economy is very healthy and huge, ranking the world’s 5th largest economy after the US, China, Germany and Japan. Its large population makes India a highly interesting market that attracts more investment from all over the world,” said Chaiwat.
Indian consumer market has very high potential, said Chaiwat. With over one billion population, the local consumer base is huge. More importantly, the country has significantly high working-aged and high-education population, which is crucial to support economic growth.
“Reports showed that per capita income after tax in India has constantly increased every year. It is expected by 2027, more than 100 million Indian population will be those with over 10,000 US dollar income per year. This will make Indian the world’s third largest consumer market after the US and China,” added Chaiwat.
High purchasing power has contributed largely to the growing food industry, which also drives Eka Global’s longevity packaging demand to grow over 100% per year. Orders from ready-to-eat local sweet manufacturers have significantly increased. At present, Eka Global has 300-400 SME customers producing sweet and each has placed more than 10,000 pieces of packaging per month.
“Indian consumers have unique consumption behavior. In addition to main meals, they love eating sweet and drinking tea all day. This has contributed largely to the continuous growth, especially among SMEs. We have observed this group of customers increasing their packaging order from thousands to tens of thousands pieces per month.”
Eka Global has invested 300 million baht in its new plant in Pune, India, to support this market trend. Beginning commercial operation in March this year, this new plant has enabled Eka Global to timely increase its production capacity and handle increasing order. At present, the company has already received order to complete its maximum production capacity which is over 300 million pieces per year.
“Our new Indian plant will serve local market. This plant’s capacity equals one third of the production capacity at our Thai plants. This year, India will be a key market that drives Eka Global’s expansion and enables us to achieve our sales growth target of 10-15%. This convinces us that our total sales will reach 1.2 billion baht as planned,” said Chaiwat.
