HIL launches eco-friendly, non-asbestos roofing product

Charminar Fortune sheets are eco-friendly and light in weight. These autoclaved sheets have high impact strength, good dimensional stability, and low drying shrinkage or moisture movement.

Dhirup Roy Choudhary, Managing Director & CEO, HIL Limited

HIL, a flagship CK Birla Group Company, has recently launched non-asbestos fibre cement roofing solutions under the brand ‘Charminar Fortune’. With this, HIL is offering an alternate option to the customers for durable roofing. Excerpts from an interview with Dhirup Roy Choudhary, Managing Director & CEO, HIL Ltd.

Charminar of HIL Ltd is a well-accepted brand in the Indian building segment. What prompted you to introduce Fortune range?

As market leaders in fibre cement sheets category in India, we undertook an in-depth analysis of the market and understood the contemporary requirements in roofing segment. In line with our sustainable strategy to create a place for new products in India, we worked relentlessly for years in developing this new product – the non-asbestos cement based roofing solution under the brand ‘Charminar Fortune’.

What are the benefits of the new product? What sort of value proposition it will create for your clients?

The Charminar Fortune sheets are eco-friendly and light in weight. These autoclaved sheets have high impact strength, good dimensional stability, and low drying shrinkage or moisture movement. Besides these, they offer good sound and thermal insulation, excellent fire resistant properties, easy nail-ability and long durability. This is a revolutionary product in the market and we do not see any competition to our quality and service. The market experts have already shown immense confidence in our product.

With the new Charminar Fortune, we will be providing our consumers with end-to-end roofing solutions that are eco-friendly and robust. We are offering an alternate option to the customers for durable roofing solution, superior to metal sheets in all aspects. These have excellent resistance to heat, sound and fire and have a life of 3-4 times that of metal sheets. Charminar has also been recognised with the consumer Superbrand award for several years and Charminar Fortune is an apt brand extension.

What will be the target market segments?

The Indian roofing market is worth over Rs 45,000 crore. Our products cater to a segment that constitutes about 40 per cent of this. This includes fibre cement sheets, metal roofing sheets, tiles and other similar substances.

We will initially target the institutional segment, where requirement of green roofing sheets is high and the available options are limited. Our non-asbestos cement based roofing sheets are already approved by a few PSUs. We hope to break new grounds with Charminar Fortune. We will also look at exporting to adjoining countries.

What challenges do you see and what are your strategies to overcome the challenges?

We are witnessing complacency in pockets as far as the roofing industry is concerned. This is due to the lack of ample innovations in the recent times. Institutional customers have got driven to using steel roofing sheets owing to the absence of other durable options, despite the inherent issues of sound, heat and longevity prevalent with the steel sheets. The awareness about non-asbestos cement based roofing solutions is quite low in institutional sectors also. Our first priority will hence be to create awareness about Charminar Fortune amongst prospective customers.

You are entering the new year with a new range of product launch. How different 2018 is going to be for your business?

2017 had been a very successful year for the company.  We have had significant growth both in revenues and profitability. The company has gone many a mile in R&D, innovations and investments this year.

2018 will be yet another very successful year for the company. We are in the midst of transformation and our emphasis has been to grow this company both organically and inorganically. We have worked to expand our range of products and provide comprehensive solutions to our customers. Charminar Fortune has been one step in providing such comprehensive solutions to customers. Parallely, we are expanding our pipes and fittings business with an investment of Rs 100 crore.

Truly living by the ethos of the CK Birla Group, HIL stands committed to serving the nation by providing durable and affordable building material solutions.

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