We have a lot of initiatives to strengthen our presence in India, to support India in its growth ambition

PALFINGER stands for the most innovative, reliable and cost effective lifting solution for use in commercial vehicles and in the maritime field. In India since 2008, the company continues to strengthen its commitment to India’s growth through innovation, localization, and a strong dealer network. In a joint exclusive interview to CONSTRUCTION OPPORTUNITIES, ARMIN SCHLAMP (ARMIN), VP CORPORATE MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS, PALFINGER AG, ALEXANDER SUSANEK (AS), COO, PALFINGER AG, AND SANTHOSH RAO (SR), VP REGIONAL SALES & SERVICE, APAC, PALFINGER ASIA PACIFIC PTE, speak on their future plans in India, USP’s of their company’s products and a lot more.

How do you think the demand for the construction equipment is evolving over the years?

Alexander (AS): It is with this belief that this market is very critical for us, we are investing here. We have seen substantial growth in the past. We are in this country from 2008 onwards. So from then it’s been a real good growth for us. But to take the next leap in our growth, it’s also important to be in sync with the priorities of the country, which is to be present here. So we see a great demand. This is very special.

You have mentioned about the Indian customer. So will you be catering to the Indian market or also the export market as well?

Santhosh Rao (SR): Well in the first step, this is targeting at the local markets, of course. We want to produce in India for India. I think it’s very important to be present in the country. And of course it’s an important contribution to be competitive on the Indian market for us, so that’s very important. And but in the later stages we also thinking about export. We see that there’s a lot of talent, actually a lot of potential on the engineering side, also on the production side, on the supplying side and we are absolutely convinced that India is a good place to be not only for local demand, but in the longer term also for export.

For the second half of 2027, what is the strategy? Will you also do for the used equipment or will you just deal with the new equipment?

(AS): Right now the objective of the plant is only the new machines. Leveraging the opportunity of used machines to increase our aftermarket revenue is a possibility that we will obviously explore and the solution cost will be on the higher side. That’s especially for the government. That has got already a reason for the good technology. We have a very clear target segment where we want to sell these machines because it has been very successful over the last 10 years. So we know exactly what is to be done. All that we are trying to do is to leverage the competencies that this country offers in terms of optimal pricing and this is a benefit that we would like to show it to our customers and to make the customer experience. So technology is always there. It’s just the economy sometimes which is a problem. That is something that we will address with this. So we have very clear specific segments which is unique for our class of machines.

The studies are going on right now. We have a design partner now as well. So we are doing the study very well. The presence of our colleagues from Austria also shows that this is something that we are doing very clearly and very encouraging results. Everything might not happen 100 from day one, but we will be there. This is also one of the big benefits of India. There is a strong supply industry already in place. And so we are currently in the process of adapting our products to the Indian market so that they are tailor made to the needs of our customers. And in parallel to this, we are localizing our supply chain so we’re looking not only for partners on the sales side to expand our sales channels, but at the same time we’re looking for partners on the fabrication side and we already have a lot of supplier visits or potential supplier visits and we are very optimistic that we can do a big part of what we need for our production in India actually.

What finally will you be offering in India and how will be the customization.

(AS): Our machines are suited for different chassis. We tell the specification of the chassis to the customer depending on the application. So the choice of the chassis is the customer’s. We are market and technology leaders actually in the segments we are operating in. And electrification is one of the big trends that we are seeing. So we have on the global scale, we have a big portfolio available using our lifting equipment either with an additional kind of battery pack, the mobile power unit which is on top of a traditional combustion engine in the truck so that you can use our device without having the engine of the truck running and burning some some fuel basically. So just running being able to run purely electrical. And we have this system available for platforms, for loader cranes, for all kinds of different devices.

And at the same time as electric vehicles are advancing quickly also in commercial fields, we were the first ones to show last year actually that our device is connected directly to the high voltage battery of the truck so that we can just spare basically an additional battery which takes extra payload basically. And so we have solutions in this field being directly connected to electronic vehicles and we also have this battery packs basically which work with conventional truck frames.

What are the USP’s of your machines

(AS): If you buy a Palfinger product, there is always a different performance level than what you can buy from most of our competitors. So be it the performance or the weight to lifting capacity ratio, be it consumption, be it the smoothness integration of digital systems, all these kinds of things which add additional value to our customers, this is specific to our products. And of course it depends on the single product category, depending on the customer’s needs. For us it’s always essential to understand what is the business of our customer and how can we help our customer to be more efficient, more safe, more profitable and that’s what we what we try to do in all our products.

SR: And just to give you an example, when we get feedback from operators who come to our trade shows and to who first operate our machines and they only know competitors machines, they really understand that it’s regarding precision, the certain smoothness of smoothness of movements, it’s a different thing. That’s comes with a higher performance. To some extent it comes with a higher price, but it also gives higher value.

We have done a lot of study and the decision to come to India as a greenfield facility for Palfinger has been a major step. This itself is a testament to the fact that we know what this country has to offer to us and we have demonstrated in own way what we have done in this country from 2008, benchmarking our own performance, you can see around for the leaders. But having done that, it is now time for us to really take the next leap. We want to do something specific for customers who really want to adopt our technology in the easy way that is localization. And at the same time graduating people, regular users of our machines to another level all together.

Your feedback on Excon and India as an emerging market for Palfinger

(AS):  For us it’s very important to be here at the Excon trade show. Its not the first time, but I can add that this is the biggest presence that we ever had in Excon. So its a very special year for us to be here. And there’s a good reason for this because we have planned to expand in India. We are convinced that India is an impressive country. Every time I come here I am impressed by seeing the energy, by seeing the rapid development that is taking place. The willingness to proceed, to bring the country to the next level, the innovation power that you are having, that’s really very impressive. And that’s a reason why we think with all the need of developing infrastructure, the investments in urban development, logistics, waste treatment and so on. There is a lot of need for our products and which that we can offer from Palfinger.

We want to support the development and the growth in India with our products, with our expertise. And that’s why we made it an essential part of our new strategy actually to grow in Asia, but especially also to grow in India. We are very pleased to make a statement with this presence here in Excon, but also development that we plan to do.

(SR): We already announced and am happy to repeat this once again that we will invest into our own production location, which also will be located in the area of Pune. We’re just about to close the last steps of land acquisition and we’re happy to work hard with the whole project team to complete factory, by the year 2027 and then we’re starting the second half of 2027 with local production. And of course at the same time we are expanding our sales and service network. So one of the targets that we’re having here in Excon is  to look for new partners which help us to expand our sales and service network across the whole country. We have a lot of initiatives to strengthen our presence in India, to support India in its growth ambition and we are very happy to do so.