Rakesh Govil
Head (corporate strategy
and treasury)
Ramesh Sanka
Financial controller & CIO
Brian Bartholomoues
V-P (strategic initiatives)
VC Agerwal
V-P (manufacturing)
European Commission drops anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigation
Tieup with Imation to bring in $100 mn annually
Launched its own brand of optical media in the domestic market
Feasibility studies for a plant in East Germany under way
Amongst the lowest-cost manufacturers worldwide
Strong R&D team helps it stay ahead with
indigenous technology
Still an OEM—getting an entry into the branded league is the current challenge
Moser Baer has been defying convention for long now, putting up impressive
performances for years now. It did it again in 2002-03, notching up the industry’s
fastest growth rate—53%. The hardware exporter grew faster than TCS, Wipro and
Infosys, India’s top software exporters. And if that doesn’t make news,
Moser Baer has done this for the second year running—last year, it received
the DQ Top 20 Award for the ‘Fastest Growing IT Company’. It’s growth rate
then—102%. If this still doesn’t impress you, consider this—the 53% growth
was achieved in a year when the other hardware exports major, Celetron, saw
revenues crash 67%.
Moser Baer has established itself as the one of the top three manufacturers
in the worldwide optical data storage market. Currently, the company is
expanding its production capacities to 1.1 billion units. Once these capacities
go online, over 80% of the company’s total capacities will become CD-DVD-flexible,
at a low incremental cost.
The company’s had its knocks as well. While revenues jumped 53%, post-tax
earnings took a knock—growing a meager 13.6% (59% growth in 2001-02). Post
9.11, fall in consumer offtake on the back of sluggish global demand led to a
sharp build-up in inventory levels. The negative impact of this can be seen in
the financial performance in the second and third quarters of 2002-03, and this
affected overall margins. By the end of third quarter, however, demand showed
signs of a turnaround, and the fourth reaffirmed this, numbers bounced—Q4
alone accounted for 32% of total sales.
In perspective, despite the fall in net profits, the year was a good one for
the company. A tieup with global leader Imation is expected to contribute $100
million to Moser Baer’s kitty every year—as it contains a commitment to
purchase 25-30% of production over the next three years, at least. This also
gives Moser Baer access to the US market, one of the largest for optical media.
Secondly, the European Commission dropped its anti-dumping and anti-subsidy
investigation against the company in January. The goal now—to ramp up capacity
to 1.1 billion units, from 730 million units. The company is also planning to
renegotiate its selling price with key customers in the first half of 2003-04.
