International cable manufacturer celebrates an anniversary

Bangalore/Stuttgart, June 2008

Lapp India is a tailor-made success story. Whilst in the 90’s many European investors preferred China as a production location, the German Lapp Group, one of the world’s leading manufacturers and suppliers of highly flexible cables, cables, cable accessories, industrial connectors, pre-assembled cables and communication technology, deliberately chose the Indian sub-continent. “We had had very good relations with a large number of Indian business partners for many years. As well as this, India is a democracy and a nation under the rule of law, not to mention the fact that very many speak excellent English”, explains Andreas Lapp Chairman of the Board of Directors of Lapp Holding AG.

Therefore, in 1998 the well-known family business with headquarters in Stuttgart/Germany invested about 10 million Euro in the construction of a new production facility south-west of Bangalore. A forward-looking decision. In the past five years alone, Lapp India has grown annually by about 30 percent. Now it is celebrating its tenth anniversary.

The cable machines in the production hall run day and night to satisfy orders from more than 2000 domestic and foreign customers in India, including car and railway carriage manufacturers, oil companies, mechanical engineers, manufacturers of wind energy converters, and the shipping industry. Each year about 100,000 kilometres of ÖLFLEX® data and insulated single cores are produced, UNITRONIC® data cables and insulated single cores are produced – almost exclusively for the Indian market. In the financial year 2006/2007 sales were about 1500 million INR, and for the current financial year 2000 million INR is expected.   Lapp India now employs about 200 employees.

In addition to the central production site in Bangalore, six sales offices in Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune and Chenai, 23 sales force offices and a very strong network of dealers ensure perfect distribution throughout the entire country. Siegbert Lapp, Director of Lapp Holding AG: “It is very important to us to be as close as possible to our customers. We are then able to react and arrive on site with our products as quickly as possible. As well as this, our customers can be sure that our cables give them the best price-performance ratio. Of course, at Lapp India we also manufacture according to our globally valid Lapp quality standards. “

The way is clear for further successful growth. Lapp Holding AG is investing all over India. At the main site in Bangalore the storage capacity was recently doubled to 2400 square metres. An extension of the production hall is also under consideration. In June this year, the new 4800 square metre warehouse south of Delhi will be ceremonially inaugurated. Here too, the setting up production facilities is under consideration. In order to be as close as possible to our customers in the automotive industry, a plot for a warehouse was recently purchased to the west of Pune. As well as this, a new distribution and sales office is planned for Mumbai. Three further locations for new warehouses are still being examined.

Andreas Lapp: "For my brother Siegbert and I, India was always in our hearts. We have not only found many good business contacts here, but also many friends. That is something which bonds us.” Because of this, since his appointment in 2001 as Honorary Consul of the Republic of India for Baden-Württemberg and the Rhineland-Palatinate, Andreas Lapp has devoted his efforts even more ardently to this topic. He wishes to build bridges between people and cultures, business and science.

To further extend trade relations between India and Baden-Württemberg, just two years ago the Indian Business Centre Stuttgart was founded at the Lapp Group premises in Stuttgart. By providing fully furnished offices, technical infrastructure and expert advice, the centre aims to make it easier for Indian companies to locate in Baden-Württemberg. The first medium-sized Indian enterprises have already located to Stuttgart. You can find further information under: www.ibcstuttgart.com.

The Lapp Group is also the principal sponsor of the “Bollywood and Beyond” Indian film festival in Stuttgart. Last February, Honorary Consul Andreas Lapp held the wine festival “Stuttgart meets Mumbai” for the fifth time, in order to further extend the contacts between India and Stuttgart.

Information about Lapp Holding AG:
The German Lapp Group with 3000 employees worldwide, 56 companies and about 100 agencies is planning for a turnover of 1200 million Euro in the financial year 2007/2008. After the production plants in Stuttgart and Forbach, Lapp India is the third largest manufacturing site in the group. With over 40,000 individual products, internationally the LAPP Group is one of the major suppliers of the fields machine and plant construction, automation technology and measurement and control technology for the automotive industry as well as for the electrical engineering, installation, transport and energy sectors (www.lappgroup.com). For example, Lapp cables are used in the Shanghai Transrapid railway, in the stage engineering for the Rolling Stones, in the New Peking Opera, in Terminal 2 of Munich airport and in the Cheops pyramid.