Welspun has continued to witness highest ever global growth across geographies with increasing consumer spending. Both the US and the Euro zone have grown in high double digits, on the back of increasing consumption levels. The company has recorded highest ever half yearly revenues at Rs. 4,728 crores, growth of 47% YoY.
Ms. Dipali Goenka, CEO and Joint Managing Director of Welspun India says, “I am proud to share that today every fourth towel and every seventh sheet sold in US now is being made by Welspun. Also delighted to share that in the list of top 13 towels published by ‘Ideal Home’ UK, Christy towels topped the list and were accompanied by 4 other Welspun made towels”.
Welspun wants to be a digitally-driven organisation by 2025 – Welspun 2.0. The company’s vision is to build strong global B2C brands with enhanced focus on profitable growth driven through increased e-commerce penetration. The vehicle to achieve this growth is Project WAVE (Welspun Achieving Value through E-Commerce). Powered by Accenture, the programme seeks to drive multi-fold profitable growth in 10+ global markets. The company expects e-commerce channels to add to its top-line of over USD 100 million by FY23.
We are continuing to focus on our growth strategy through our innovation products, D-2-C initiatives in brands and E-Commerce & Emerging businesses on the one hand and continue our commitment towards ESG and sustainable growth, on the other. We launched one of the largest traceability and ESG transparency rollouts in textile industry with Wel-Trak 2.0, which would help all stakeholders to track raw materials throughout the supply chain back to its origin through Block chain and AI-based technology.
We have started capturing major ESG-related data points including water usage, fair pay, power consumption, gender equality, among others, to further our ESG agenda. The World Economic Forum selected SPUN as one top 100 global corporate ready social enterprises. We received Clarivate Innovation award for second year in a row- only textile company to do so”, adds Ms. Dipali Goenka.
Investment and Expansion
With increase in global demand, Welspun has announced expansion of towel, rugs and flooring manufacturing capacity. The company has approved plan to augment towel manufacturing capacity by 20% at its plant in Anjar from the existing 85,400 MTPA to 102,000 MTPA to meet the growing demand from the overseas customers. Keeping in view the recent trend of customers focus to track the entire value chain i.e., “Farm to Shelf”, the company has approved an investment in 40 looms for towel fabric at Anjar which represents 7% of installed capacity.
At Vapi, Rugs capacity expansion by 80%, which commenced during the last year, Welspun has planned an additional investment relating to automation for faster production turnaround at lower cost. The Company is expected to invest Rs. 6,565 mn for the aforesaid expansion over FY22 and FY23. The benefits of these expansions will start accruing in phases from Q1FY23 onwards. This expansion has revenue potential of Rs. 12,070 mn from second year of operation.
Welspun Flooring Limited has approved capex of Rs. 1,436 mn to be invested over FY22 and FY23, for de-bottlenecking and rebalancing of its facility at Telangana, including setting up of a 25MW Renewable Energy Power Plant for uninterrupted power supply at lower cost and to further the Group’s commitment towards ESG by embedding sustainability and circularity at every stage of its value chain. During the current year, Welspun has invested Rs. 2,810 mn in capex and the total investment during FY22 will be Rs. 7,500 mn.
Advanced Textiles
Welspun’s Advanced Textiles Division, which manufactures disposable towels and wet wipes out of nonwoven textiles, has forayed into disinfectant wipes and surgical masks. The business offers a diverse range of products using three major technologies – Spunlace, Needlepunch and Thermobond. Each has an in-house downstream conversion unit to manufacture value-added products. In Spunlace the company saw better price realisations and improved operating metrics. The Spunlace and disinfectant wipes’ line commenced production have commenced production.