During the FE AgriTech Summit 2022, industry experts discuss the potential of tractor exports and predict the market. Here are excerpts from the panel discussion.
In the last few years, India has become an export hub for global carmakers and the potential is unlimited. Looking at the statistics, tractor sales have gone up, hinting at the opportunity that India can become a global export hub for tractors.
Speaking on this, Industry leaders such as Gaurav Saxena, Director & CEO – International Business, Sonalika Tractors, Raunak Varma, Managing Director and Country Head, CNH Industrial India and SAARC, Bhartendu Kapoor, President Sales & Marketing, TAFE, and Rohit Saboo, President & CEO, National Engineering Industries Ltd, discuss their views during the FE AgriTech Summit 2022.
In recent times, India has expanded its tractor portfolio considerably, offering small horse-powered tractors to larger capacity ones. Since the pandemic affected some crucial global markets, India capitalised on this and has expanded to different continents with a better supply network. This has helped deliver tractors and equipment better than most of the world, thanks to the local supply chain.
Bhartendu Kapoor said, “India is in fact the largest tractor manufacturer in the world, however, the difference is that the tractors which we manufacture in India and what we export to the other countries are below 100 horse power tractors. So, the usage of these tractors in India is very robust.”
He added, “Whereas the usage of tractors across the world is not so high therefore the robustness of the tractors which are manufactured in India they go through different Terrance different kind of conditions and the quality which comes out is very well accepted across the world.
Also, the tractor industry is going through a change, and component manufacturers are working with OEMs to make things more precise. Rohit Saboo said, “solutions are being developed along with our OEM suppliers”.
Currently, Africa and the SAARC regions are India’s primary export markets, however, experts are eyeing more developed markets where technology such as CVT or HST is required. Also, experts pointed out two areas where significant progress needs to happen — digitisation and technology.
Although digitisation is slowly trickling down to community levels, Indian customers are still unwilling to pay for modern technology, since savings is a concern in many aspects of farming, most being related to input costs.
Gaurav Saxena pointed out, “If we look into the overall industry, it is about 2 million tractors are been sold globally, out of this almost 40% or 50% tractors are manufactured or sold in India. And if you remove China, it is about 7 or 8 lakh tractors are being sold outside India. currently, India is taking care of about 1,25,000 tractors and I expect that this volume will go up to 2 lacks in future once we have technology in place and new models are coming up.”
Raunak Varma added, “The potential is tremendous. We are really at the tip of the iceberg if you look at the overall tractor market. It is about 67 billion where about 7 billion is domestic plus roughly about another billion or billion and a half of export. 10-12% of the total tractor market will grow almost 45% by 2028.”
