City-headquartered defence public sector company Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers (GRSE) estimates the share of exports in the total order book of the company to rise to around 10 per cent over the next couple of years amid rising interest from European countries in commercial shipbuilding in India.
The company has informed market analysts that out of the total orderbook of ₹23,877 crore as of December 31, 2024, around 4 per cent is from exports.
The company informed stock exchanges in June 2024 of receiving a $54 million order from a German firm for the construction and delivery of four multipurpose vessels of 7,500 DWT (dead weight tonnage) each, with an option to build four more for the company in the future.
The company's chairman and managing director Cmde P.R. Hari said that with many European nations looking at India as a destination for commercial shipbuilding, the company remains confident of ramping up the export share to around 10 per cent in another two years.
Even as the company expects a strong pipeline of domestic orders over the next couple of years, exports command a better margin.
"There is enough number of orders that are going to come in the near future for all. But we are not happy only with that. The reason we are going for export is first, global recognition and second after we put our feet firmly on the ground, the margins are going to be good," Hari said at the third quarter earnings call of the company.
The order book of the company comprised warships for the Indian Navy, P-17 Alpha frigates, survey vessels, anti-submarine shallow water crafts, offshore patrol vessels, research vessels for DRDO and hybrid ferries for the Bengal government.
On Monday, the chairman told CNBC TV18 that the orderbook of the company is likely to increase to around ₹40,000 crore in the next financial year.
GRSE has reported revenue from operations of ₹3,434 crore for the April-December period of 2024-25 compared with ₹2,577 crore in the corresponding period previous financial year.
Profit after tax during the first nine months of FY25 was ₹283 crore compared with ₹246 crore in the year-ago period, as per exchange disclosure.
The GRSE stock closed at ₹1,336.30 on the BSE on Monday, a gain of ₹17.35 or 1.32 per cent from the previous close.
In January, GRSE joined hands with Apollo Micro Systems Ltd to explore business opportunities in defence and other sectors, reports PTI.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is to establish a business partnership for the joint research and development (R&D), co-production, export of underwater weapons and vehicles, underwater communication systems and air defence systems, AMSL had said in a filing to the stock exchanges.
