How is the market for safety equipment for infrastructure and construction industry shaping up in India?
The construction industry in India is expected to have substantial growth over the next few years owing to increasing infrastructure expenses. The increase in demand for better public infrastructure, such as airports, harbors, rail transport systems and roadways are expected to drive the construction industry. Growth of personal protective equipment market in India can be attributed to due to increasing workplace safety, product innovations, increasing awareness towards worker’s health and rising incidence of various diseases such as Covid-19. Increasing number of manufacturing units and construction projects in the country is also influencing India’s personal protective equipment market. Rising investments by international companies are also catalyzing the personal protective equipment market in India.
How has your organization performed in the last three years?
Mallcom’s major revenue comes from exports. It has been a couple of years now that logistics has been disrupted due to distinct reasons. However, broken supply chain and rising raw material costs have hampered growth. Container prices have increased 5 folds and raw materials prices such as cotton and polyester are up by 30% in a year. Passing on these costs to the customer takes time and that is where we have to take a hit. However, it’s macro change and therefore shall affect everybody and not just us. The only good thing is that people are considering China+1 strategy and we are poised to take on the additional capacities. In spite of challenges for the last few years we have managed to expand our factories in West Bengal and have also launched new factories in Gujarat and Uttarakhand. This year we have also been listed in NSE. Mallcom has also launched helmets, rainwear and face masks (among other value-added products) under the broader PPE range. For us personal protective equipment is related to occupational safety pertaining to multiple areas such as factories, kitchen in hotels & restaurants, construction sites, dockyards, and even at laboratories, etc. We have been making face masks long before this pandemic has hit the world. During the pandemic, we made medical PPEs but that was a small segment in our overall business. We have been making FFP-2 masks when everyone was talking about N-95. FFP-2 masks are largely used in Europe for the safety of industrial workers and hence we could supply them for protection against Covid.
In the last three years, which are the products you have launched for the infrastructure and construction industry?
Mallcom India has catered to specific industries with a range of more than 400 SKUs. The last few years have been strongly devoted in R&D to create and recreate new products as per the advancements made in every field. Two specific products to be mentioned for this are our Helmet named Jasper, which is the lightest and strongest in the category along with our safety boots known as Dalfon. These have been designed keeping the requirement and environment of the infrastructure industry in mind.
Please share with us the IoT and AI features of the safety equipment you have launched?
Mallcom has developed unique machineries to make production in huge scale. One of our machineries which is a Robotic arm for safety shoe sole injection has increased our production capacity in the last few years along with the automated fabric spreader and cutter for workwear and gloves.
How are you securing your products against counterfeiting?
We have an in-house team who do thorough market research by coordinating with different alliances to understand the challenges that we are facing. We have implemented Transparency code verification on Amazon for our end customers to be assured about original Mallcom products. Besides that we have Holograms on boxes and proprietary designs with IPR .
What are the awareness campaigns you conduct to spread awareness about safety to the construction workers?
Every year Mallcom designs a campaign for safety week, this year we planned to aware the end users of our products. It was demonstrated by our sales team at various locations including construction sites.
What are the policies and regulatory changes require to propel the sector?
I am of the opinion that new labor laws with more focus on OSH is the need of the hour. There should be stricter enforcement by PSUs on worker safety. Implementation of BIS standards across all product categories should be made mandatory.
What are your growth plans for your organization for the next three years? Are there plans to launch new products?
New product launches from our product portfolio are Hi Visibility Vests, New range of mechanical gloves, More lifestyle safety shoes. About our growth plans to increase our market shares, we are currently focusing more on Indian and American market.
