“Our sales forecast for 2025 is around USD 30 million in the Indian market from sales of XLPE for power cables, FR-XLPE for special cables, Semicon, LSZH for optical fibre and FTTH cables, XLPE for solar and EV cables.”
Navank Consultants is an optical fibre cable and power cable raw materials consultancy company. Founded in 1998, the company aims to provide high-quality products at a competitive price to Indian fibre-optic cable and power cable companies. Since 2009, the company has expanded its portfolio and been procuring insulation & sheathing compounds from Zhejiang Wanma Co. Ltd.
In an interview with Wire & Cable India, Mr. Naval Singhal, Director, Navank Consultants takes us through the business journey of the company, product range, market presence, and growth drivers.
Wire & Cable India: Please take us through the business journey of your company along with the products and services being offered by your company.
Naval Singhal: Navank Consultants was established in 1998 by my father Mr. Navin K Singhal, a pioneer in the field of optical fibre & cable industries, with an intention to bridge the widening gap between the growth of cable companies and the non-availability of high-quality raw material in the country.
Since 2009, Navank started focussing on the Indian fibre-optic cable market which was expanding rapidly and sourcing raw material from China (which was also growing very rapidly in the world’s OFC supply chain solution).
One of the products which we started importing from China was ECCS tape that is required for armouring of fibre-optic cable. Over the last decade, we have investigated and expanded our product portfolio from ECCS tape to foil Mylar tape, water blocking tape & yarn, and most importantly, insulation & sheathing compounds from our partner Zhejiang Wanma Co. Ltd. based near Shanghai in China.
Wanma is the number one manufacturer of compounds in China with more than 25 percent market share in the Chinese market. With four plants in China (Hangzhou, Huzhou, Sichuan, and Quigyuan region), Wanma manufacturers XLPE, Silane XLPE, Semicon, LSZH, PVC, and other elastomers for global cable companies and has partnered with Navank for Indian and European business.
WCI: What is the vision and mission of the company?
NS: Our vision is to help Indian fibre-optic cable and power cable companies to build the fastest and most reliable internet along with a longer-lasting high-quality power cable network in the world, meeting international quality standards like ISO, UL, IEC, and other global standards.
Our mission is to provide very high-quality products at a competitive price and thus, ensure Indian companies continue to build optical fibre networks and power networks and achieve consistent growth of 10-15 percent per year. Accountability, transparency, and honesty are our core business values.
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WCI: How do you help set up projects in the power and fibre industry imbibing these values?
NS: Honesty and transparency are indeed the core of our business and I believe that has helped Navank grow to a USD 10 million company in 2021. We take pride in giving our customers honest and clear end-to-end information from raw material costing up to freight pricing and hold ourselves accountable for the material quality and delivery. Our core value has been working together with our customers to develop innovative products meeting new quality standards as required by the OFC and power cable industry from time to time to penetrate the international market.
Navank has recently also diversified into logistics and freight forwarding to provide timely updates to the customers and bring more transparency and accountability to this business.
“Cable manufacturers are now focusing more & more on international quality standards which require high-quality sustainable raw material sources that have an internal R&D base for fast turnaround of new & innovative raw material.”
WCI: Could you please give us a glimpse into the market presence of the company — both domestic and international? Also, please outline the plans for expanding your market reach.
NS: Wanma manufactures around 500,000 MT of compounds every year and sold around 2000 MT to the Indian market in 2021. The numbers speak for themselves; we are growing at 100 percent YoY in the last 5 years since 2016-17 when we entered the Indian market.
Wanma had revenue of around USD 800 million from their global sales with India contributing around USD 5 million in 2021. Our sales forecast for 2025 is around USD 30 million in the Indian market from sales of XLPE for power cables, FR-XLPE for special cables, Semicon, LSZH for optical fibre, and FTTH cables, XLPE for solar and EV cables.
We are already working with many prominent cable manufacturers and believe that as the trust over our products is slowly developing, that will eventually lead to our robust and exponential growth. Some of our coveted and happy customers are Prysmian Group, Sterlite Technologies Ltd., HFCL Ltd., Polycab India Ltd., APAR Industries, Dynamic Cables Ltd., and Draka. They are well renowned for their high-quality products.
WCI: How do you relate the contribution of the government’s ‘Digital India’ initiative to the fibre industry? Also, share your thoughts and plans regarding this segment.
NS: The government’s ‘Digital India’ initiative has really helped the fibre & cable industry and thus, the country at large. For the fibre market, we anticipate that the demand will increase at a consistent pace of around 10-15 percent per year based on the Indian demand for faster broadband demanded by the customers both at home and the workplace. Also, we see that most of the Indians are using one of the digital ways to buy products/services, pay digitally using wallets or apps, need entertainment on demand, and thus need faster internet everywhere and all the time. Change-over from 4G to 5G network and industry 4.0 transformation will also increase the fibre and cable demand which is a part of the Digital India program.
There are multinational companies that are now hiring in tier 3 cities (impact of COVID and flexibility to work from home) which will help increase the penetration of broadband towards the rural areas as well, and thus more customers who would need fast internet.
Wanma is serving Indian cable companies by providing high-quality LSZH for fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) cables which ensure safety and protection as there would be little or no smoke in case of fire. Wanma also provides fire-resistant (FR) XLPE which is used for special cables that safeguard the power cables from catching fire.
WCI: What kind of investment is India expecting in the optical fibre cable network infrastructure in the coming years? Where do you place yourself in this growth story?
NS: Optical fibre cable network infrastructure is bound to receive high investment in India and we continue to see a lot of our customers already making such investments to drive growth in the infrastructure space. With the influx of smart devices, for example, smart vehicles, smart appliances at home, etc. that are being used by customers, network infrastructure has to be kept at par to ensure low latency and deliver high value from the smart devices to the customer. There is already huge investment happening in the 5G space around the globe and industry 4.0 program and we see a similar trend in India as well. Wanma is supporting the growth of EV smart vehicles with its compounds which are specially used for auto, EV charging, and e-beam auto cables.
WCI: What measures and steps should the optical fibre cable makers take to secure a long-term supply of optical fibre for meeting the rising demand from the network providers?
NS: In the last two years, we have seen major disruption of the supply chain due to COVID that has impacted the manufacturing of optical fibre cables for our customers. There have been an increasing focus on ‘glocal’ (global-local) supply chain solutions where optical fibre cable makers want the suppliers and partners to provide material both from overseas as well as have a base in India for emergency usage.
With Navank’s diversification into freight forwarding and material warehousing as a value-added service for its key customers, we are able to provide them with peace of mind during these uncertain times when global supply chains are disrupted.
“We anticipate that the fibre market demand will increase at a consistent pace of around 10-15 percent per year based on the Indian demand for faster broadband demanded by the customers both at home and the workplace.”
Navank is also working together with Wanma on the onshore/offshore model where 70-80 percent of the material will come directly from the offshore plant in China and around 20-30 percent can be catered from the local onshore warehouse in India which will be managed by Navank.
WCI: Any concluding thoughts that you wish to add to this interaction.
NS: We are equipped and focused on truly becoming an international player. Cable manufacturers are now focusing more and more on international quality standards which require high-quality sustainable raw materials sources that have an internal R&D base for fast turnaround of new and innovative raw materials. In partnership with Wanma, we are determined to achieve new heights by delivering a high standard of quality products and customer service.
