The alkaline battery plant commissioned by Eveready Industries in Jammu on Wednesday will support the company’s push toward premiumisation in India while also opening up opportunities to integrate with global supply chains, a top company executive said.
The unit, set up at an investment of ₹200 crore, will be an import substitute as it will be the first such manufacturing plant in the entire SAARC region.
“In the larger scheme of the country’s self-reliance mission, it is a good example of domestic manufacturing replacing imports in the energy sector. We will unlock at least 10 per cent margins (by manufacturing locally), which will give us much more teeth to accelerate our journey towards premiumisation,” Anirban Banerjee, CEO of Eveready Industries, told The Telegraph.
The plant, supported under the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, has an annual peak production capacity of around 360 million alkaline batteries, with an installed capacity of 456 million units. It will also have a capacity to manufacture 7 million flashlights and 6 million LED lights annually.
Eveready, backed by the Burman family of Dabur, is the market leader in carbon zinc batteries used in toys, medical devices and electronic gadgets with 52 per cent market share.
Following the relaunch of its alkaline battery brand Ultima in 2023, the company has increased its share in the alkaline segment to 15 per cent from 2 per cent earlier, in a market still dominated by players such as Duracell.
Banerjee described India as one of the last bastions of the zinc battery, which has an 85 per cent market share. However, the alkaline battery segment, which caters to modern-day gadgets and equipment, is growing at 20 per cent, while growth in zinc batteries is flat. In the developed economies, two-thirds of battery use is alkaline, while in Southeast Asia, the penetration is 40 per cent.
“This plant is an investment for the decade,” Banerjee said, adding Eveready would look at a 20 per cent share of the alkaline category going forward.
Apart from supplying its own brands, the company also sees opportunities to supply competitors that currently rely on imports. It also expects export opportunities through white-label manufacturing for Europe, the US and West Asia, amid global supply chain realignments.
Burman makeover
The Jammu plant is Eveready’s first major manufacturing expansion in more than a decade, coming shortly after the Burman family took charge of the Calcutta company in 2022. After investing heavily in building the brand and scaling up the alkaline business, it has now gone ahead with manufacturing.
“The company’s topline has been flattish for years. In the last three years, it has started growing. In the third quarter of last fiscal, the topline grew by 8 per cent. I will not be surprised if Eveready attains a double-digit growth momentum going forward,” Banerjee said in the interview.