What are the steps to growth in India?

Gemini is taking “baby steps” in its move to sell its truck mounts internationally, but it’s a different story when it comes to the domestic market.

There, the company has been a pioneering manufacturer in the sector and has seen significant growth since starting production of its truck mounts in 2020.

Rajiv Sethi, founder of Gemini Power Hydraulics

As a distributor of MEWPs, the company is also a direct witness to the growth of the self-propelled market as the rental model establishes itself. Indeed, the total rental fleet in the country has been forecasted to reach as much as 80,000 units by 2030.

Gemini started its journey as a distributor, and now represents CTE for truck mounts over 20m and Palazzani and AlmaCrawler in the self propelled space, as well as Jekko for material handling.

In August 2020 the company took the leap into manufacturing and now has two models, 11m and 14m platform height models, with the Levo brand name.

Rajiv Sethi, founder and managing director of the company, and his son Aahan, who is director of manufacturing, share their view of the market.

Aahan says, “We’ve spent the last four years developing our processes and fine tuning the product to the point where we are able to not only manufacture but assemble and deliver quickly to the customer.”

From small beginnings 

What started as a small workshop has now developed into a 40,000 square feet factory, run by a team of experts in the fields of design, production and procurement - 100% of Levo products are designed and manufactured in India, with an emphasis on compact and lightweight, with high tensile steel and low emissions.

The idea to manufacture came when the Covid pandemic led to an inflated Euro, alongside raised raw material and freight costs, particularly for small units.

Aahan Sethi, director of the company’s Levo truck mounts.

Long before the pandemic Gemini had approached European manufacturers with the idea of taking on a distributor role. The feedback was that with India having such a localised market and many domestically produced chassis, it made sense to build in the country.

“So, we thought, why not go into manufacturing? We already had experience in assembling products and the knowledge in terms of electronics and hydraulics, it was just further investment that was needed in terms of design, etc.

“We wanted to provide a complete service to customers and secondly thought, this was low hanging fruit.”

While Levo truck mounts already meet EN280 standards the focus is on full CE certification, so that they can be exported, hopefully as soon as next year. “While India does not have stringent requirements we have plans to export our product overseas and the groundwork starts from now.”

In terms of sales the company has grown from around 20 Levo products a year to 100 units last year, which in India is a significant number, considering the market is very young.

“The road map the government has laid for the next 10 years includes a large range of infrastructure projects and to meet the requirements it is almost paramount that an organization has at least one truck mount to do installation or maintenance.”

While India’s rules are a step behind those in Europe, the country is catching up. “It is not like three to four years ago when we were on Euro 3 emission standards and Europe was on five to six - we have made a big leap forward. But it won’t be on a par with Europe, untill we have third party testng organisations like TUV.”

It is difficult to put an exact number on truck mount operating in India, as there is no industry body that publishes such data.

Having said that it is believed there are around 250 – 300 new OEM-produced units sold each year, representing a 30% annual increase. Plus, the 50 - 100 units produced each year by independent suppliers on an ad hoc basis, for local municipalities and tier 2 and 3 cities.

Growing MEWP market 

Do Rajiv and Aahan Sethi see the same percentage growth in the MEWP sector? “I wouldn’t say truck mounts are at the same growth level as self propelled, but they are catching up significantly. I would say in the next two or three years they will be on a par with growth in self-propelled.”

A Levo truck mount working at one of the country’s many heritage sites. (Photo: Gemini)

While the rental sector is heavily dominated by scissors and booms, the company has also seen a sudden growth in spiders and other specialist equipment.

“Self propelled is at a very interesting inflection point where a lot of people for various social and economical reasons have found there is a great opportunity to invest.”

This includes in manufacturing, where the likes of JCB have moved into MEWP production in India, along with others from China and Europe showing an increasing interest.

“Some of them are looking for dedicated manufacturing facilities and some are looking at a hybrid model with key components coming from Europe or China and they are assembled in India.

“We can see this in the automobile industry – where companies initially had small bases in India and now have dedicated factories.”

With the country’s population of 1.45 billion and the growing investment in infrastructure, the potential is huge.

The Aerial Platform Association of India (APAOI) started back in 2015 with 10-15 members – mainly crane related, exploring access. Today membership stands at around 120-130, addressing all relevant issues from technology to training and rental rates to safety.

At the last meeting, APAOI members forecasted there would be around 80,000 MEWPs in the rental space, up from the 10,000 -15,000 in the market now.

However, “That’s based on a straight line from the Chinese growth pattern.”

“Even if half of that is achieved by 2050 that will be a huge jump for the industry.”

China comparisons 

Comparing the growth potential in India compared to the massive increase that has happened in China, “It would be wrong of me to say we don’t dream of that happening here.

Tunnel maintenance is one of the many applications that the Levo is suited to. (Photo: Gemini).

“But the approach taken in India is more strategic and calculated. What happened in China, due to the industry boom, was that everyone came out with vast amounts of product. In india there is a steady growth that is going hand in hand with the requirements and the technology of the time.”

The main challenges, particularly for production in India, is two-fold. “Due to a large labour force people are still more accustomed to the manual side of working with less electronics less mechanization, so if you want to introduce too many things into the country with too much technology that can be a challenge.”

It also means that skilled labour is hard to retain, especially as the equipment fleet is growing relatively quickly in the country. “No one is able to keep hold of operators or supervisors for long. Once you get trained up you get a lucrative offer from somewhere else.

“This leads operational related breakdowns. People complain to the manufacturer that their machine is faulty when it actually comes down to operator error and operation.”

Nevertheless, there is great opportunity for MEWPs and truck mounts in India.

“I think there is tremendous potential for our products to grow exponentially.”

And as far as Gemini’s truck mount products are concerned the next step is Europe. “The core focus of development over the last four years is to make our products export ready, and we are working towards all required certification to export to Europe.

“We are gearing up and next year you might see one or two of our machines in Europe.”