India’s WPC Capacity today
WPC market has actually evolved with really a good pace. In these four years, India has witnessed establishment of more than 50 odd manufacturing facilities for making different WPC products including WPC Sheets and WPC Decking. More players are in pipe line and we are projecting a volume of more than 300 manufacturers in coming 5 years. This subject will go nuclear way. Today, Gujarat is leading the subject with more than 22 players. Ahmedabad is the leader city with more than 7 Lines. We are ahead of Japan as a country manufacturing WPC.
Weather & Cultural issues
We are genuinely facing problems of moisture and termite. Our furniture – be kitchen or bedroom – can be affected anytime due to these two issues. We are carrying culture of cleaning floors with wet clothes or free water. Any culture cannot be changed over the night. This has created a problem of reduced life of furniture – be it with wood or modular with particle board or MDF board.
WPC sheets play a strong and positive role here and it is becoming more and more popular amongst Indian users. Carpenters and Architects have got good understanding about the product and they are using WPC now more effectively in their creations.
Customers’ anxiety
We have always got curious, interesting and positive responses, while we promote or talk about WPC. At initial stage some threw it off just without understanding it. But such cases are very low. More we have got positive and solid interest only. Once one understands the product he/she will say “This is a future product!”
Basic question was coming with two techno commercial challenges – price and screw holding and those answers are also well understood by the market.
Price comparison
Reiterating the same here “Any plywood/MDF/Particle board cannot be used without surface protection. This surface protection is must and required expense for HPL on both the side, glue for that and labour. With WPC you can directly apply the sheets while making furniture. For elevation/shutters only you have to use HPL or Paint or any other substrate which is normally being used with wood panels also. An average cost of WPC sheet match the cost of a wood panel that is ready for application. Importantly, it is 100% recyclable and its user can get at least 15% cost back at any point of time in future.
Screw Holding
Screw holding is moderately perfect and better than MDF and Particle boards. Apart, you can refill the screw gap with PVC grips available in the regular market with use of PVC Solvent Cement.
Mass level awareness
Amongst Other challenges one is the mass level awareness of this product. Still product is not reached to each and every corner of the country. Larger players like Century Ply has started marketing this product and we are waiting for more such players’ entry those can brand this product on TV Media.
Global interest in India
India is becoming popular destination for WPC products. With more than 50 odd manufacturing lines our country is fetching attraction from all over the world. We are targeting equal percentage (50%) turnover from foreign markets. This will include WPC sheets and WPC decking, respectively.
WPC actually is well accepted in Global markets. I would say, we are late for understanding and taking interest in this product. Those countries are well developed and they are using WPC as a part of their consciousness about greenness. For us WPC is becoming necessity. We don’t have effective plantation practices, rules and initiatives. We are importing lot of timber and today only Gandhidham has become the largest timber import zone of Asia.
Logically, WPC has started being accepted as WPC Sheet first and now we are accepting WPC decking too. This is reverse in case of global markets. Today India has overtaken Japan in WPC production with total installed capacity more than 60,000 Tones/year. It has happened in last 4 year only and it goes more aggressively now. This is happening because of a comfort for accepting a product that is already running in Europe, USA, Japan & Australia like countries.
WPC PANELS for furniture
India is using WPC panels most effectively than the entire world. You may get amazed but this is the fact that we are using WPC sheets in variety of applications taking from Doors, Frames, Carcass, and Shutters and so on. You make Grill boards, wave boards, digital panels, molding panels etc.
Mandatory material for Carcass
It’s a forecasting that for carcass making PVC WPC panels will become ‘mandatory material’. You can directly use WPC panels for kitchen, wardrobes, shoe racks, book cases or any other box making. You don’t need to apply any HPL while using in this application. Further, Carcass occupies more material than shutters so in terms of volume also it covers a larger market. Direct use of WPC Sheets can give advantage of ‘buy back’ to the manufacturer and this system is already into implementation. This way same material can be used and flow of material & revenue will be maintained. This cycle will encourage bringing the overall price level of the material down in the future.
About HARDY SMITH
We have been serving wood panel industry more than a decade now. Derived from the alma maters like Rushil Décor & Hallmark, wood panel technology has been a domain of interest always for us. We have entered into 5th year now as a company dedicated to WPC sector. We are working as a pioneer for WPC subject in India and our march is still on will remain continue, as it is a passion for us now. We take up turnkey advisory projects for WPC product. We have got business cooperation with battenfeld-cincinnati, Austria for larger projects. At the same time we are cooperating with Jelu, Germany for WPC compounds for different mouldings.
We have established WPC CENTRE at Ahmedabad to develop, promote, educate and supply of WPC products and vivid applications. This is the state of the art centre supplying WPC sheets, WPC Doors, WPC Door frames, WPC modular furniture, WPC Wall claddings, WPC Flooring and WPC planks. This is all under one roof.