MUMBAI—VKC Group, which claims to be India's largest footwear company, plans to double capacity at its plant in Bangladesh.
Currently, the company operates 20 polyurethane footwear plants. In total, 17 are spread across 10 Indian states and three are overseas. Two of the overseas plants are located in in Sri Lanka and Dhaka, Bangladesh. The third overseas factory is located in Sudan. That factory, and the joint venture plant in Dhaka, started operating in June 2018.
"We are now expanding the Dhaka plant, doubling capacity from 10,000 to 20,000 pair/day by adding one more line," VKC Group Chairman Abdul Razak said at IPUA's PU Innovation Day, which was recently held in Mumbai.
Currently, all non-Indian plants have capacity of 10,000 pairs per day of PU footwear.
Razak is positive about expanding further outside of India. "We are studying various markets but yet to finalise a location."
VKC Group is based in Calicut, Kerala. It started business making rubber sleepers before moving to PVC- and EVA-based footwear.
"We introduced PU based footwear in 2007 and 80 percent of our footwear range is PU based," he said.
When speaking about his company's financial performance and product offering, Razak was bullish.
"We are growing 25 percent CGAR from the last decade. Our success lies in making affordable PU footwear which an ordinary person could buy. Prices can be as low as INR 150 ($2.04)," he said.
Meanwhile, the business has grown rapidly in last decade. Sales have increased to about $210 million in 2015, up from about $8.74 million in 2006. Production is currently running at about 500,000 pairs per day.
Currently, Razak's company operates PU 60 production lines at 17 footwear plants. These are spread from in in Kerala, Tamil Nadu Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, in the south of India; Gujarat, in the west; West Bengal and Assam in the east; and Madhya Pradesh in the center of the country; and, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh in the north.