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FINANCIAL TIMES, NEW DELHI, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 201208 Business Street
WITH the national capi-tal region (NCR) andDelhi housing a large
number of high net worth indi-viduals (HNIs), the belt is begin-ning to see some aggressivemarketing by yacht dealers.
After BMW, Mercedes andprivate jets, yacht ownership isnext step to add zing to one’sstatus symbol. Pilot’s licence isalso passé. The rich are flaunt-ing their wealth with yachts.NCR is neither a coastal region,nor is there an inland waterwaythat could support the boatingindustry (the Yamuna here isconsidered more of a drainagethan a river). However, foryacht dealers, NCR is one of thehotspots which is buzzing withprospective buyers.
“Delhi-NCR, at present, mightnot be where a major chunk ofour business comes from, but wedefinitely think that this is goingto be one of the biggest marketsin the coming years,” said SujayChohan, director of Ocean Blue—one of India's largest boatinggroup, with varied interestsacross dealerships, charters,yacht management services andmarina development and main-tenance.
Anju Dutta, managing direc-tor Marine Solutions added thatthe contribution of this regionto their business is still verysmall in the range of 5 to 10 per-cent. “But there is more aware-ness regarding boating and weexpect that in year 2012-13queries will start convertinginto sales,” she said.
Ms Dutta said that “Bombaystill remains the main marketfollowed by Goa. The new mar-kets are Kochi, Bhopal, Kolkataand Odisha.”
SHALLOW WATERSAccording to industry players,there is a significant increase inthe number of enquiries frompeople residing in Delhi-NCR.However, they lament thatapart from a few, not manyturn into actual sales due tovarious factors such as the ab-sence of a place to keep theiryachts. Interestingly, lack of in-terest or limited buying poten-tial is not a reason.
“We are sure that there is nodearth of potential buyers. Ithas more to do with how andwhere they will use boats andyachts,” said Aashim Mongia,managing director of WestCoast Marine YachtServices. “I thinkwith more aware-ness on usage, a ma-rina to station andmanage yachtswould trigger sales.”
Even coastal citieslike Mumbai andGoa lack marine infrastructurethat is the prime reason for thenot-so-impressive sales figure inthe region. “Lack of marine in-frastructure at any of the coastalcities is a big put-off for prospec-tive buyers,” said Mr Chohan.“There are no marinas inMumbai or any other city ex-cept in Kochi. Because ofthis, people are notsure about the safety
of the boat if they buy it,” headded. Ocean Blue developedthe marina at Kochi and main-tains it for Kerala TourismDevelopment Corporation.
“A lot of people from Delhihave holiday homes in Goa.They like to keep the boatswhile vacationing,” said MsDutta. “However there is nowinterest to own and keep yachtsin Bombay for corporate useand entertainment. We providefull maintenance and manage-ment services for the full year inMumbai, Goa, Cochin andCalcutta,” she added
The dealers believe that un-like buyers in Mumbai, Delhi-NCR residents cannot keep acheck on the condition of theirboats personally, which makesthem wary of investing a hugeamount on these water beau-ties. “With the development ofmarinas across the country, wedefinitely will see a better re-sponse from Delhi-NCR,” saidMr Chohan. “With so manyHNIs present in the region, it isone of the most potential futuremarket for us.”
SIZE MATTERSHowever, Mr Chohan said thatDelhi-NCR as a market for boat-ing industry will be differentfrom Mumbai. “The Delhi-NCRmarket will not be as big asMumbai when it comes to thesheer number of deals. But thesize of the deals could beamongst the highest. Most ofthem will be over Rs 10 crore,”he said.
According to Mr Mongia,“Most of the buyer’s are firsttime buyers. The most preferredsegment is 20 to 50 feet (ft)length size of high-speedboats to luxury yachts.
There have been a few selectedinstances where individualswho bought yachts 8 to 10 yearsago, are now upgrading to largesize yachts.”
“We expect the Indian mar-ket to grow more on 20 to 50 ftLOA (length over all) segmentfor next 5-7 years and at thesame time there could be fewselected larger size purchasesof 100 ft plus size,” added theMD of West Coast MarineYacht Services.
The 18 to 25 ft boats costanywhere between ̀ 6 lakh to`60 lakh. Whereas the biggersuper luxury yachts, in therange of 40 to 100 ft, willcome with a pricetag of ̀ 5 crore to`100 crore.
HIGH TIDEPlayers are alsogauging Delhi-NCR’spotential as a yachtmarket by looking at thedemand for boat charteringservices. Most of the dealersalso provide boats on charterservice too. They say that char-tering of boats by corporate andHNIs is very common andshows their interest in in-dulging in leisure boating.However, “It is not easy to deter-mine the contribution of char-tering service in the entire size ofthe boating industry, as it is stillunorganised,” said Mr Chohan.
Inbound tour companies andhigh-end specialised event man-agement companies are also onthe look out for this service. Hesaid that at present the boatingindustry is worth around ̀ 500to ̀ 700 crore but it is set to growat a phenomenal rate. “The in-dustry could be around ̀ 5,000crore in the next few years,” saidMr Chohan.
One of the reasons cited for
envisioning such a bright futureof the industry is the demogra-phy of India. “In the comingyears, India will have more than500 million people under theage of 25 and even if the econo-my grows at six percent, therewill be quite a few people whowill be in a position to shell outbig bucks for yachts and cruis-ers, which are already a statussymbol,” he added.
Experts say that though Indiaapproximately has a massive20,000 km of waterfront, in-cluding a coastline of 7,600 km,it is still a small market for theboating industry. “As far asboating is concerned, India isstarting from ground zero,” saidMr Chohan.
Until recently, sales werehappening only in Mumbai. It isonly in the last 3-4 years thatboating industry has steadilygrown beyond the Mumbaishores. “We have now soldboats in Goa, Cochin, Port Blair,Visakhapatnam, Chennai,Kolkata, Dhamara, a few placesin Gujarat, Kerala and some in-terior places,” said Mr Mongia.
“At present, Mumbai still ac-counts for 70 percent of thesales and the rest is coming fromother cities,” added Mr Mongia.
RNI NO 57252/93, Published by K.C. Jain for & on behalf of the Owners Times Publishing House Ltd. at Times House, No 7, Bahadurshah Zafar Marg, New Delhi – 110103and printed by him at The Times of India Press 13 and 15/1, Site IV, Industrial Area, Sahibabad (U.P.). Consulting Editor:Shivendra Kumar Singh. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the Publishers is prohibited.
Yacht Business toSet Sail in NCR
Aashim MongiaManaging DirectorWest Coast Marine
Yacht Services
As pilot licence becomespassé, super rich of NCR gofor yachts turning the regioninto a prospective market forniché dealers, says J Srikant
Continued From Page 1
MAJOR challenges facing the biometric indus-try in Noida, however, are the disorganisednature of the industry, lack of awareness, limi-tation of usage to basic functionalities, absenceof domestic biometric manufacturing capaci-ties and insufficient number of comprehensivesolution providers.
“The biggest problem for the domestic bio-metric industry is the Indian mentality of buy-ing cheap products at the expense of quality.This has led to market being flooded withcheap Chinese products at attractive pricesthat not only attract clients but also local smallbiometric shops sell to earn better margins.Presently, the ratio of genuine (domestic andforeign brands) to Chinese products in themarket is around 35:65,” says Mr. Verma
The government is the largest buyer of bio-metric devices and high-end security solu-tions. However, with the influx of multina-tional companies and large enterprises, thebiometrics industry has been exposed to a newevergreen market.
Low DomesticManufacturingHurting GrowthProspects
Anju DuttaManaging Director Marine Solutions
