The OEM’s subsidiary is aiming to “drive growth and increase its market share”.
Ricoh India’s Manoj Kumar
Daiji World and Decca Herald reported on Ricoh India’s Managing Director Manoj Kumar, who spoke about the company’s plans to “drive growth and increase its market share in products and services”. He noted that the company intends to invest Rs 500 crore ($78 million/€68 million) throughout this financial year, with the plan of “ramp[ing] up data centres and [opening] a tech centre”.
According to market analysts IDC, the company had a 28 percent share of the market in monochrome MFPs and 40 percent in colour in the first quarter of the year, and its revenue increased from Rs 300 crore ($47 million/€41 million) in 2012 to Rs 1,047 crore ($164 million/€144 million) in 2014. In turn, it is said to be “witnessing exponential growth with growing demand from corporate and government projects”. In the first nine months of the year, operations income grew 46 percent from Rs 694 crore ($109 million/€95 million) to Rs 1,010 crore ($159 million/€139 million).
The company has also installed data centres in Kolkata and Noida thanks to an investment of Rs 25 crore ($3.9 million/€3.4 million), and is set to “focus on the five industrial verticals” including education, healthcare, BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance), manufacturing and strategic business “for the next three years”. A recent deal with the country’s postal department as a system integrator for ICT will see Ricoh help “modernize” 129,000 post offices, and is worth Rs 1,370 crore ($215 million/€189 million), while two others deals were won to “install IT infrastructure” in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
Kumar stated: “We will invest Rs 500 crore this fiscal to expand our operations across the country […] to offer our range of IT products, solutions and software services to more enterprises in the private and government sectors. We are upbeat about our growth and increased visibility in the Indian market where IT services will be a growth engine in coming years.
“We have already streamlined an investment plan. Here we will take the investment amount to start a separate tech centre which hosts an experience zone (just started operations) and a B2C outlet to address growing demand from customers. We find Bengaluru as an ideal location to start the tech centre. We have already optimised the capacity of two data centres and there is need for additional investment taking into account the volume of business we are expecting from the government and other customers.”
He added: “We are expecting a fourfold increase for the coming three years, which means we will have to cross Rs 4,000 crore ($630 million/€554 million) by 31 March 2017. Here we are expected to make an annual growth rate of 55 to 60 per cent. I think our IT business will help us to register that much growth. We have already won 20 to 30 projects from the government. These are on different stages of development. We do hope to get into more business opportunities in the digital India campaign and smart city projects.”