Riding success!

Besides giving a safety protection, helmets also offer good business opportunity and they have become an extension of one’s personality. Realising the same, Steelbird, a popular name in the product category, is planning to come up with its exclusive outlets in near future. In an interaction, Rajeev Kapur, Managing Director Steelbird Hi- Tech India Ltd speaks about the market strategies to scale up the business in near future.

 

How big is safety wear market in India?

The estimated size of helmet industry is around Rs 1,000 crore, which is largely dominated by unorganised sector. As per conservative estimates, the helmet demand in India should increase over 1.5 crore pieces annually. However, there are only 2-3 companies making ISI mark helmets which are not more than 20 percent of the entire demand and Steelbird enjoys 35 – 40 percent market share of this segment.

 

What are the factors propelling the growth in this segment?

Market growth is expected to accelerate to a yearly rate of six percent between 2010 and 2015, to reach almost $85 billion. Overall, the motorcycle market is characterised by a high degree of fragmentation. Research predicts the electric scooter market will be larger than the electric motorcycle sector in 2017, because globally electric scooters are booming in Asia Pacific, which has a total count of close to 20 million electric scooters, or close to 100 percent of the market.

 

What is the rationale behind going into exclusive outlets? Do you have any plan to   venture into franchise model?

The rationale behind venturing into exclusive outlets is increasing brand presence and showcasing the entire range of Steelbird Helmets. These are futuristic, "state-of-the-art" brand shops of Steelbird that give consumers a complete experience of all the products in its basket. It planned to attract young customers, especially bike lovers. Besides major cities, the company is also present in Tier-II, III cities. 

We are already working into franchise model.

 

What would be the layout, size and proposed location of your upcoming store?

Our location strategy for the stores is high street. We prefer near automobile accessory market so that our product can be easily reachable to the people. 

Average store size could be – 250 sq ft to 550 sq ft.

 

What is your strategy to counter competition?                        

Owing to our unique business model we have an edge over other players in the market. Hence in terms of our penetration and sales volume, we don’t find anyone our competitor.  

 

Any plan to venture in to online medium?

As of now we are on Facebook, we are very much connected to youth. Every time if we have to launch any new product we ask them to suggest the name/ideas for the new product. We are selling our product online too.

 

How you would you like to grow from here?

We are intended to be a Rs 500 crore company by 2015, with a vision to be known as Asia’s largest selling ISI helmet brand. Since the last three years, Steelbird has increased its manufacturing capacity over three times to 9,000 helmets a day and intend to increase this figure to 18,000 helmets per day soon. 

Also, we will be spreading our wings through our exclusive Riderz Shoppes pan India. After the success of first pilot project in Delhi, Kanpur and Chandigarh etc, Steelbird has set up another in Northeast India seeing the overwhelming demand of Steelbird products in this part of the country. To meet the demand supply gap, we have plans to come up with 200 Riderz Shoppe in near future.