Exclusive: Hella India Lighting mulls foray into 2W OEM lighting business

Hella India Lighting, the Indian automotive lighting arm of the German Hella Group, is planning to foray into the two-wheeler lighting business with the OEMs in the local market.

Talking exclusively to Autocar Professional on the side lines of the ongoing ACMA Automechanika in New Delhi, Ramashankar Pandey, managing director, Hella India Lighting (HIL), disclosed that “we are planning to step into the OEM two-wheeler lighting space here as we see that the two-wheeler OEMs are keen on new, updated technologies like LED systems and projector lamps. This indicates a sizable opportunity in this segment. The two-wheeler segment is known to have huge volumes in India and we hope to make a foray soon.”

HIL’s business composition consists of special OEs, aftermarket and export segments currently with each contributing to the company’s revenues with nearly equal share. The special OE segment for HIL primarily includes commercial vehicles and tractor manufacturers as customers. The company does not supply to the passenger car and two-wheeler companies in India so far. However, in the aftermarket division, it does supply lighting products for all segments within the automotive domain including passenger vehicles and two-wheelers.

The company has also been focussing on growing its exports lately. According to Pandey, close to 50 percent of the produce from its Derabassi plant in India is exported currently. The facility has a current annual production capacity to manufacture 0.85 million units of headlamps, 0.76 million units of tail-lamps, 0.32 million units of worklamps, 1.48 million units of LED lamps, 0.69 million units of AUX lamps, 0.76 million units of projector modules and 0.7 million units of switches.

On an overall front, the current capacity utilisation stands at close to 50 percent reflecting on the fact that HIL’s immediate priority would be to bag more orders from OEMs and expand its businesses in the aftermarket and export segments.