of you at our Investor Day event. This event is been scheduled over a two-day period, with today, we will be taking you through the presentations on the business overview, and tomorrow being the plant visit. Let me briefly take you through the agenda for the day. We'll begin the session with an address from our Chairman and Managing Director, Mr. Kushal Desai, and Managing Director, Mr. Chaitanya Desai. This will be followed by the divisional presentations, namely the Conductor Division, Specialty Oils and Lubricants, Cable Solutions, and Telecom Solutions. Post that, we will have the financial review, and after that, we will have a presentation on the ESG initiatives taken by the company. After that, we will have the Q&A session. We request all the questions to be taken up during this Q&A session.
There is a QR code on each of this, in each of this table, and we request any questions coming up during the course of the presentations or even later, you can scan the QR code and post your questions online, which will be answered during this Q&A session. For participants joining the live stream, you can put the questions on the chat room. Tomorrow will be the plant visit, it's been scheduled at our facility in Rakholi, in Silvassa, and in Khattalwada.
With that, I would now request Mr. Kushal Desai and Mr. Chaitanya Desai to please begin the session for the day. Thank you.
This one?
Yes.
Okay. Good morning, everyone, and a very warm welcome. This morning, it's not raining, and the weather seems quite good, so we are in a position to begin pretty much on, on time. This is the first Investor Day presentation that we've had, and so, you know, as in APAR, we keep learning as we go, so your feedback would be quite valuable in terms of, you know, what you think about it and what are things that we can, we can do. We are starting off actually by just--
The first slide actually covers very quickly some of the mission and philosophy behind the company, and we take it very seriously at our end, and you'll find, you know, as you go through the rest of the presentation, that it forms an integral part of our go-to-market strategy and the way in which we have constructed our businesses and products. Our mission has been, and all of this is available on our website, to design and manufacture building blocks for energy infrastructure, for transportation and telecommunication, the sectors that contribute meaningfully to this world, and we want to be more energy efficient, more environmentally sustainable, and create the world to be a safer place. You'll see this running through the entire set of products that we have. We've also selected our verticals very carefully.
We want to be a global leader in whatever we do, and the focus is clearly on the energy infrastructure, transportation, and telecommunication sector. The focus that we've always had is to bring solutions to our clients. The tagline of APAR is, "Tomorrow's solutions today." That's the main area of focus for us. These are the values that we have. You know, innovation has been at the bedrock of our industry. What has happened in the last 10 years is more than what you've seen, products and services change over the last 50 years, plus, that the company's existence has been. We are quite driven, you know, proactively striving for better outcomes and solutions for our clients. We believe that we are a very entrepreneurial company.
Our people are empowered to take ownership, and this runs, you know, down the ranks. You will meet today, a whole set of business leaders who actually drive, revenue, sales, and strategy in the company. In terms of accountability, you know, that's a, that's a value that's very important for, the kind of execution that's responsible, you know, for sustainable growth. Then we've defined leadership as, you know, inspire to lead, the innovation curve. That's how we have an ideal Aparian, and, you know, that's something that we run all the way through the company. The current strategy of the company and its foundation pretty much was laid by, late Dr. Desai. He was second generation, I'm the third. Rishabh is here, who you'll hear presenting. He's part of the management team.
He's the fourth generation in the company. One of the principles that Dr. Desai laid down, and it continues to be a best practice even today for us, is that, you know, we want to be a leader in the top three in our business segments. This has propelled us to be very focused in our business verticals. We've defined the market to be the world, so we want to be the best in those defined areas, and we want to lead the innovation curve in each of our business segments. That is why, you know, the company motto actually is very important for us, which is: Delivering tomorrow's solutions today.
We went through a big branding exercise a few years ago, and we've unified our logos, you know, made everything more contemporary, gotten all our verticals and all that pretty much together. We have our specialty oil group, we have the lubricant business, both of them will present. We have the conductor business, then we have our Cable Solutions business, and then we have our telecom solutions business. If you see, one of the things that we've changed is that we've made sure that all our product offerings actually are a form of a solution to a client.
Coming to the growth opportunities, we really see these six areas, which are the primary six areas that the company is focused on, and from where we see in APAR, you know, the growth opportunities to take us from today over the next, you know, 10 years. The beauty is that these opportunities actually are not short-term opportunities. They are structural in nature, and they're changing the way the world is going to operate. The first one, which is probably the biggest driver in our business today, and it's very closely linked to the transmission expansion side, is the addition of renewable energy, which is wind, solar, and nuclear. There are various commitments which governments have made. There is a huge ESG thrust, which we are seeing from our clients.
It's actually coming outside, inside, so from overseas clients, but even in India, you see the reporting starting to come in. My colleague, Mr. Saraogi, Suyash, will have a section to explain to you what our own initiatives are in this space. Public transportation is a major area that's changing, that's your trains within the cities, et cetera. The whole transmission expansion that's in place to evacuate power from all these new additional sources. The telecom vertical is undergoing a massive change, and in India, you have Bharat Net and, you know, a whole lot of interesting products that are coming in with 5G, and with the manner in which data transfer is taking place. You will hear a little bit in terms of those specific products and solutions.
You've got general infrastructure development in this country. One of the great things that this current government has done is to allocate massive amounts of money for infrastructure development, and that brings with it a whole lot of equipments that are required, and the moment you have an equipment, you have a lubricant. You'll have a little bit of a coverage in terms of of that. Finally, the manufacturing in China Plus One . You know, India is finally coming to a stage, and I'm sure you all cover so many companies. A lot of CapEx is going in into manufacturing infrastructure. Again, there is a play there for both cables and lubricants. Coming specifically to the addition of renewable energy, you know, we've kind of divided the slide into two parts.
What is the sector opportunity and what is it that APAR has to offer? What is the advantage that we've kind of built in that sector? You know, this presentation is going to be it's, I think it's already on the website, or it's going to be on the website as soon as we finish. You can pull all the slides. It's all going to be in the public domain. If you look at the sector opportunity, the solar installed capacity is expected to grow by almost 225 GW, and the wind installed capacity is expected to grow by about 55 GW during this 2024 to 2030, just in India alone. Similar sort of expansion is happening.
Our sense is that, and our focus is on the G20 countries, because, you know, to do this, you need currency, you need investable dollars. The G20 countries are the ones which are in a better position to actually put the money in, you know, for infrastructure. It's not all government-led. A lot of it is through private investment. India aims 45% less carbon and 50% renewable energy by 2030, and to be net zero by 2070. Even if you miss this number by a decade, the amount of work that's going to go on is, is, is just tremendous. If you see what we have to offer, we're the leader in domestic solar cable segment. We are the most dominant player in the wind segment, with over a 70% share.
You'll see a slide later on, which kind of explains where these cables are used, and our products are used in the whole network. The range that we have, it meets all the global standards, which is the EN standard, which is the number one standard that operates globally. You have IEC, you have UL, you have CE. So we have products which meet all of these standards, so they allow us to participate not only in the, in the Indian market, but wherever this goes in the world. In fact, if you see the markets for us in terms of revenue, after India, the next largest is the United States, and the third largest is Australia.
If you look at the global renewable energy addition growth that is expected to happen, we are looking at 150 GW from 2024 to 2027. Globally, renewable energy share to increase from 28% to 38%. Basically, you know, substituting hydrocarbons in place. Here, you know, wind in many countries around the world where you don't have the kind of sunshine that's there, you know, in Asia and in India, et cetera, is going to be a very major player. You see some of the largest wind turbine manufacturers are all located overseas. We deal with all of them. So you have Vestas, you have Siemens Gamesa, you have Senvion, Envision Energy, which is a big Chinese player, and they've set up manufacturing in India. Nordex and GE.
GE are the world's largest wind turbine producer at the moment. We are also the largest exporter for cables and conductors from India, and hope to continue this. 50% of our revenue is basically across all the three verticals, comes from export. In terms of the third area, you have extensive transmission and cable infrastructure required to transmit the power from these remote locations. There's a chart, as I said, which will explain this to you much better. The concentration of expansion is happening pretty much simultaneously in the G20 countries today. We have products serving the renewable energy infrastructure, right from generation, the transformation, that's, you know, the substations and all, which steps up, steps down power, transmission and distribution through, you know, the last mile.
This chart, it may appear a little bit busy, but it gives you the full idea in terms of the end-to-end, where APAR's products are used in this whole renewable infrastructure. The first portion is, you know, the renewable power generation, we've got a whole lot of cables in there. The string cables, low voltage cables, et cetera, et cetera, you know, When you see the slide in detail, you know, you can see all the different cable types. In short, you know, you've got cables for solar panels, and that gets connected to a junction box. The junction box goes to an inverter. In the case of wind, you have the wind turbines, you have a cable that runs through the tower, then it goes to a ground base.
That ground base, from there, the cables go into an inverter, and both of these then go into a substation, where you've got a transformer and you have, you know, the stepping up of power taking place. From that substation, you move into the overhead conductor side. You've got a grid, either there's a new grid or there's an extension to an existing grid. There's a whole lot of strengthening of grids happening, where, you know, the amount of transformation is not adequate, and it's being increased. That's allowing for a whole lot of reconductoring solutions also, for which we are a leader. You've got, again, step-down transformers, and then that leads then through underground cables and the full last mile distribution. Whether you do wind or solar, fundamentally, the same network holds good.
APAR is present in every stage of this, and we offer these products not only in India, but in all markets around the world. In terms of public transportation, including mobility, the big opportunity that's there is that the infrastructure investments in India are happening in the railways. This is intercity, metros, which is intracity, and also a high-speed rail conversion. Right now, not only bullet trains, but even Vande Bharat and, you know, all of these. The APAR advantage is that we have a full range of cables that go into coaches and locomotives, and we have forward integrated into a full harness solution, so the entire piece can be then supplied to the railways. Increasingly, the railways are looking at outsourcing manpower intensive kind of work. We are by far the largest cable supplier into Vande Bharat trains.
As the trains start rolling out, you'll have more and more of APAR cables running in there. We are the market leader in supply of conductors for the Indian railway electrification. Most of that project is coming to a close, but you are now having upgradations happening, because some of the Vande Bharat trains are not able to run at its full speed, because there's not enough power that's-- There's not enough current that's driving, or can be carried on those lines. My colleague, Surya Babu, has a specific slide that explains to you all the products that go into this whole railway side. Then you have the EV market is projected to grow by 49% CAGR.
It's anybody's guess, but our sense is that this whole electric will move more in terms of, you know, public areas. You've got buses, taxis, you know, all these, and you will have a full charging infrastructure that comes in. At the moment, India has one charging station for 125 vehicles, only in urban concentrated areas. Forget about the rest of the country, just looking at, you know, a city like Mumbai, for example. This is very, very low compared to the global average of about six charging points per vehicle to 20 charging points per vehicle. There is these are all highly cable intensive. What do we have to offer? We have electron beam-based auto cables. We supply those to JBM Group. Now, we've got approvals at Electra EV.
We are working on getting it with Leyland. You know, as this transportation increases, you know, and we supply this not only in the form of cable, but also the harness. We've also developed for the first time, a complete indigenous manufacturing harness for the EV charging. There's a charging cable, there's a connector, you know, what you would use instead of a pump, you know, you use that connector to connect, you know, charging of the vehicle from an electric point. In terms of the infrastructure growth, the government has been allocating investments in building, you know, extensive road network, the freight transportation corridors, you know, ports, tunnels, airports, commercial buildings, you know, all of that. There is a steady growth also in personal mobility that is happening.
With this road infrastructure improving, what's happening is that, you know, we keep a track of generally the number of vehicles that are put on the road, which is trucks and cars. A number that's more elusive is how many kilometers each of these are actually traveling? The lubricant consumption is a proportion of the amount you move. The turnaround times are significantly better after GST has come in, with these highways coming in. You know, the time that it takes today to go from Mumbai to Delhi is half of what it was in the pre-GST period. It's probably going to become another half, so it'll be one quarter. Mr. Gadkari has been saying 12 hours, you know. Literally, you can have the vehicle reaching there, the next day coming back.
You can imagine the same vehicle's utilization going up, a lot of more fuel and lubricants being used by a vehicle. With the highways coming up, I'm sure a lot of you would prefer to just drive. For distances two, 300 km, you're much better off driving than taking a train or a car. Again, that's adding to the miles. We have a whole range of lubricants that go for off-road equipment, for infrastructure, which includes cranes, road construction. We have products for dredgers, we have products for tunnel boring machines, we have products that go into mining equipment. My colleague, Sundar, will actually cover a little bit more about that on the lubricant side. We are also offering a complete range of specialized cables that go into all the infrastructure equipment.
We have a cable that drives, for example, tunnel boring machine, as, as an example. Then you've got this increased manufacturing opportunity in India, you know, with the capacity increase taking place. With the cost of labor going up, not only are you having a higher capacity coming in in each industry, but you are also having more sophisticated equipment with a higher level of automation. You know, as you get into that, you have more expensive equipment, lubricant consumption. Anything that moves requires really a, a lubricant. You know, the, the, the value that's given for performance and protection of these equipments keeps increasing. There is not only a volume growth, you know, you'll see in the lubricant industry, volume growth is 3%, 2%, because the lubricants have a longer life and a higher performance.
The value is growing at a much higher rate. Again, you know, it's a similar thing as cars, you know. It's not just the number of cars on the road, but how many kilometers it's traveling. The same sort of effect is there on lubricants. Recently, Kline, which is one of the top research houses in the country, they've taken out a report on the Indian lubricant industry, and there are some-- You know, the summary of that is available on their website. You know, if any of you are interested to do a deeper dive on that subject, this is a great place to look for it. We also have a full range of lubricants for the industrial applications, as I said, hydraulic compressor, metalworking, et cetera.
We are a trusted lubricant supplier into the whole gas pipeline, CNG station filling area. We are one of the largest suppliers of lubricants for tractor manufacturing and farming equipment. We supply ITL, we supply Escorts, we supply TAFE, Eicher, all of these for their first fill as well as their genuine oil requirements. All right.
I'll now invite Chaitanya to actually just run through, you know, the remaining verticals and also the premiumization story that we've had.
Yeah, yeah. Good morning. On the transmission side, last 5 years in India, we've seen about 80,000 circuit kilometers being added and 350,000 MVA of transformation capacity. In this area, APAR has an advantage. We are not only manufacturing the transmission conductors, but also in this segment, in the tariff-based competitive bidding, which is the major requirement in India, the product that is now being used is moved to a specialty alloy. It is a high-efficiency conductor, and there are very limited players of this compared to what the conventional type of product that was being used earlier in the TBCB. Besides the conductors, also cables are being used, also the transformer oil. Within the transformer, we make the copper winding.
These are the various products which we are supplying in the transmission segment. Another major driver within the transmission area is due to the right of way problem. To put up the new towers, to put up the new transmission lines, there is a requirement to buy the land or to get the land from the farmers and, you know, the people who own that land on the way to put up this transmission line. Because it's becoming such an acute, difficult problem, the various utilities worldwide have been forced to reconductor. That means they want to replace the old conductor with one which can transmit double the amount of power. The current entire infrastructure of the towers remain the same, and there is already a certain ground clearance, which is the distance from the ground to the transmission line conductor.
That cannot be violated, because obviously, we don't want anybody, you know, bumping into a live line and getting into any safety issue. So to maintain that ground clearance, the product that is being used is called a low sag conductor. So it is a high power current carrying capacity, but at the same time, in spite of it being at a higher temperature, there is, you know, the requirement of it not sagging down. So therefore, it is called a high temperature, low sag conductor. Different parts of the world had moved to different type of technologies, and APAR is able to produce all the varieties. Even within India, the different states of India and the different utilities, depending on their requirements, have been using different type of HTLS products. APAR has done more than 150 reconductoring projects.
We do this on a end-to-end basis, because the conductor is a very major portion of this entire project. Also, we have supplied 35,000 km of HTLS, various types, which are working satisfactorily. There is a fair amount of technology in these products compared to even the high-efficiency conductors, which are used in the TBCB. Another driver in this transmission side is the replacement of earth wires, which are used to avoid lightning strikes on the towers. Those are the traditional product, and that has been replaced with a product called OPGW. This is earthing, but it also has a optical fiber inside it. This is another requirement which we are fulfilling, because we have the entire manufacturing capability, and also we have the reconductoring end-to-end solution.
Not only we supply it, we also execute it at the site. There are, in the export markets, also slightly different variations of products which are required from what is required in India. Over the years, we have been developing these capabilities and making these products. There are significant barriers of entry, especially with these foreign clients, who have a very, very vigorous requirement of audit before they give the approval to the, you know, vendor. They don't want to just buy on, like, the Indian utilities on a L1 basis. The thought process of these foreign clients is very different, and that's why we prefer to cater to that marketplace also. As we heard earlier, the railways are, you know, having a lot of electrification work to replace the diesel locomotive process.
Not only the conductor, which is overhead the tracks, but also feeding the power to the railways, that is another area which is growing and is a big driver to our business. Accordingly, these various type of speciality conductors are being used to feed the power to the railways. In the telecom side, we've been seeing a lot of digital transformation evolving very quickly. Also the GB per smartphone, we expect that to grow at 25% CAGR. We think that by 2028, there should be 55 GB per mobile usage. Here, APAR has the end-to-end telecom solution. We make the hybrid copper and fiber cables. We also think there will be about 10 billion mobile connections, with the majority being smartphones, by 2030.
There is expected outlay of investment by the Bharat Net, government of India, for INR 139,000 crore. This project from the government is for the last mile connectivity across 6.4 lakh villages in the country. Here, we make the full range of offering, including the fiber optic cables, hybrid cables, LAN cables, copper cables, and the OPGW conductors. Also, in addition to these standard products, we are customizing through innovations to make certain value-added products for various clients. The third driver in this telecom segment is the advent of data centers and cloud computing, and we have the full set of cables for data centers, and increasingly, we are pushing for approvals through the consultants. What has played well for APAR is that we have made a conscious effort for premiumization.
Here, we have worked not only in developing the products, but convincing the clients to shift through, you know, explaining to them the value proposition from the conventional type conductor to high-efficiency conductors, as an example. Not only the Indian market has moved in this segment, as I explained about the, you know, alloy-type product for the TBCB, but and the HTLS-type products, but also in the export markets, where the clientele are looking for a very vigorous quality standard requirement. Those markets are premium markets, we have been improving our margins through catering to both the domestic market and the export market through these strategies. We've been taking on these various projects on end-to-end EPC turnkey basis, especially in the OPGW and the HTLS-type markets.
Another example of our effort to premiumize is through improving our mix of naphthenic and special grades of oil, especially on the higher voltage classes. In terms of the cables, we have been making a very conscious effort to grow in the elastomeric and special application cables used in various growing markets, like solar, wind, shipping, mining, defense, and railways. Through this premiumization of portfolio, our return on capital employed and return on equity has improved, and these are our most important parameters that we look at. Another area is through our globalization effort. We export to over 140 countries now, and also about 50% of the company's top line.
In each of the three businesses of conductor, cable, and oils, this 50% top line is being maintained for the export markets. Obviously, for the entire company as well, our effort is to do more globalization. We made an effort to reduce our, you know, dependence on the government utilities, which traditionally, APAR used to do a fair amount of work. Right now, it is hardly 1.6% of the company's turnover is coming from, you know, this government companies, and that means the remaining 98.4% is coming from private segment. There is a lot of synergy between all our businesses, because within the power segment, we have conductor, cables, transformer oils, and the various type of copper winding products going in the transformer industries.
We also have a lot of relationships in terms of the common customers, like the global utilities, EPC contractors, and the OEM, you know, that we cater to. This globalization process has also helped in fragmenting our customer base. Another area that we worked is on innovation and increasing the robustness in trying to understand what are the customer problems, and how we can provide a solution around it through innovative solutions. These are some of the examples we have. When India wanted to go for a 800 kV HVDC application, then our oil, we could, you know, design it so, and we are the only manufacturer of that. Similarly, we've come up with a high-performance, biodegradable, renewable transformer oil, which is launched first of its kind with extended life.
We're the only Indian company to have an electron beam house wire, called APAR Anushakti , which has 50% more current carrying capacity and much superior melt resistance, and it can withstand higher temperature, so it improves the safety factor by a huge margin. We also make special FRP fiber optic cables for critical infrastructure projects. Similarly, there are a number of other products for the exports, like the solid shape conductor, the air expanded conductor, dull finish conductors. All of these improve the efficiency, they improve the sustainability for the client, and ultimately, better value proposition for the client. Similarly, there is the transformer oil, NE Premium, and similarly, there is specialized renewable cables.
We are also making harnesses, giving it as a solution, so that it can reduce the amount of labor requirement for the client, and also reduce the wastage that happens at the client place. These innovations for each of these divisions has helped in synergistic diversification. We can use our common facilities, our core competencies, to increase the product offerings with different markets, and also improve our robustness. In case, for any reason, there is a little slowdown in one segment, then some other can pick up the slack, and we can utilize our assets in a better way. To sum up, we feel that we are in a favorable industry, and our fundamentals are strong as a company. We see sustained growth opportunities. We are very focused in our sectors.
There are times in the past when the sector was not doing so well, but we stuck to our, you know, core competencies, and growing in that area, because we see enormous opportunities going forward. This is now panning out in the last few years, as Kushal mentioned earlier. Our focus is in solving tomorrow's solutions today, and for our customers, enabling us to lead the innovation curve. APAR embodies a long-term pursuit of excellence, where our DNA drives us to keep ascending passionately and achieving responsibly.
With this, I request my next client to take it forward. Thank you.
Good morning. Warm welcome again. My name is Surya Shoban Babu. I am Senior Vice President, taking care of sales and marketing for Conductor Division. Today, I'll be covering, mainly, a brief overview about conductor business, market overview, and products and services we are offering to the industry. If you see, we'll be, you know, seeing and hearing, you know, a lot of investment is happening in the power infrastructure and transmission and distribution segment, also a lot of investments are happening. What is happening on the ground? The question is, you know, what it is driving this, you know, requirement or growth, and how long, you know, this growth is going to sustain, is an important question. If you see, the mainly, you know, everywhere, the power demand is growing.
What are the key drivers, which is, you know, this is driving this growth? Mainly the electrification of transportation system, economic growth, and population growth. There is a decarbonization drive is going on. Because of this, you know, there is a lot of pressure on the power sector that, you know, renewable energy, you know, generation has to happen. For that, you know, a lot of solar, wind, and nuclear energy generation is happening. To this, you know, this renewable energy, you know, has to add up to the grid, so there is a requirement of transmission lines are coming up. Also, you know, this fossil fuel cost is going up, so renewable energy is an alternative solution. We need a lot of transmission and distribution network, you know, requirement is coming up.
There is an, a smart grid requirement is there, because we have been having, you know, our old, you know, transmission networks, where, you know, the inefficient and power losses are more. We need a quality power, and efficiency has to go up, you know, to reduce the losses. There is an, again, a requirement of, you know, new, transmission lines has to be established, or otherwise, old transmission lines has to be, renewed or, you know, made, with these smart grid solutions. Coming back to the, market overview, domestic and export. In India also, Power Ministry is saying, you know, a lot of infrastructure, you know, investment is happening, but what is there for APAR?
You know, in next five years, you know, it is already there on the plan, and the execution is happening. 28,000 circuit kilometers, you know, has to be completed by 2027 and 2028. Which means almost, you know, 12 lakh to 13 lakh metric ton of conductor requirement is there. Those who don't know, you know, what is conductor, briefly, you know, is a transmission line, distribution line, you know, that is big, big towers are lying and, you know, conductors are hanging on the towers. Those are the conductors which carry the current. From generation to substations, these, you know, transmission lines are built, and from substations to the, you know, cities, inside cities, those are called distribution networks. The current carrying is done by the mainly aluminum overhead conductors, so we manufacture those.
There's an augmentation of transmission lines are there, and almost 18,000 circuit kilometers are planned in next five years. There is an e-export market for APAR, you know, almost in the similar tune of requirement across the global, wherein, you know, almost, you know, 4.5 million metric tons of conductors is needed for next, you know, 5-10 years. That means almost 8 lakh-10 lakh metric tons of conductors are needed across the globe. Out of these, you know, major investments are coming in India as well as, you know, in the Asian countries. Apart from India, we have a big market, USA market, and there is in Brazil, Australian market. Also in Europe, lot of renewables are coming up.
There is an African market wherein, you know, a lot of still, you know, there's power requirement is there, so basic needs still not yet fulfilled. There's a lot of scope is there in the African countries. If you see our conductor journey, we have started in 1958. You know, until 2012, you know, we are focusing on the conventional conductors. In 2014, you know, we had a technical collaboration with the CTC Global, American company, who manufacture carbon composite cores. We started manufacturing HTLS conductors. These called HTLS is, you know, new age conductors. In 2016, you know, we have started our turnkey projects, end-to-end solutions. In 2017, you know, we have started our OPGW cable manufacturing facility, and we have developed our in-house design capabilities.
In 2018, we have entered into our copper business, you know, started with the railway conductor. It is the largest, you know, conductor manufacturing facility for railways, and we are first to manufacture copper magnesium for, you know, high-speed bullet trains. In 2019, we started CTC Conductors. These are our copper enameled conductors, paper covered, and these conductors goes into transformer. In 2022, we have started, again, few more products in the copper segment, busbar, strips, and rods, mainly serving to the switchgear industry and panel manufacturing. Some of the motor industry are also using this and some component manufacturers.
In 2023, still, you know, the demand is still growing, so in spite of having largest capacity, we are still expanding our conductor manufacturing capacity to, you know, meet the, you know, domestic needs. These are a brief, our product profile, starting with conventional conductors. Conventional conductor, basically, you know, this ACSR and AAAC conductors have been, you know, under use since decades, and these conductors still are being used across the globe, like in American developed world, we say. In America, maximum, you know, conductors, almost 90% of the conductors' requirement is only ACSR conductors. Whereas in India, we have, you know, moved ahead, like, you know, these from the conventional conductor to new age conductors, and rest of the world is catching up.
We can say, you know, India is the, you know, leader in terms of, you know, moving ahead to the, you know, latest technology. The main industries we are catering to, you know, power transmission and distribution segment. Our major customers are mainly power utilities, developers, and EPC contractors, and some of small quantities goes through the dealers and distributors. In this conventional conductor segment, our strong leadership and competitive edge is, you know, we are having rich experience because we have been manufacturing since 1958, so we have developed our strong expertise in this manufacturing, and we have been supplying since last two decades, to the, you know, global clients.
We have got very, you know, top global people, you know, approvals we got, so we have got very good credentials, and we are exporting to 100+ countries, and we have a strong design capabilities. That is, you know, we are having a lot of focus on R&D development. These are our strong, you know, leadership qualities we developed up. Coming next, products are HTLS conductors. These are new age conductors. HTLS is, you know, high temperature, low sag conductors, and, you know, we have supplied these conductors almost 50,000 km. That means, you know, more than 50%, almost 55% of the share. This is mainly in India and Bangladesh, Nepal. You know, these are the new age and new technology conductors.
You know, we are, you know, leadership position we have, and a bigger market share we have. In this segment, almost, you know, we have done, you know, end-to-end solutions, almost 155 transmission line reconductoring projects we have completed. 10 projects of distribution line conductors we have, you know, completed. In this, mainly the conductor used is majorly AAAC conductor. ACCC meaning Aluminum Conductor Composite Core, which is a, you know, I told you that, you know, we had a technical collaboration with CTC Global. They are the manufacturer of this, you know, carbon composite core. These conductor, you know, predominantly used in India and Bangladesh, Nepal, and across global, it is getting prominent in, you know, even North America and South America, in even Europe also, it is getting, you know, popular.
After these ACCC conductors, there are, you know, different, like ACSS conductor, gap conductor, STACIR. STACIR means super thermal alloy. These super thermal alloy conductors are, you know, Japanese market, actually. In India also, you know, one or two lines we have used, but majorly, if you see, ACCC is the, you know, predominantly and, you know, more popular in our industry. There's OPGW cable. This is in, actually, from 2017, we started supplying and getting popular since, you know, 2017 onwards. Prior to this, you know, in the transmission lines, normally we used to use, you know, GI wire as a earth wire. In the, you know, normal transmission lines, you have a phase conductor and neutral conductor. In the neutral conductor, means earth wire is there.
Earth wire was made up of, you know, galvanized steel wire. You know, after, you know, 2016 and 2017, these OPGW cable started using it, because it is a dual-purpose conductor. It can be used as a earth wire, as well as in the center, there is an aluminum and steel tube is there, which is having fibers in it. This is used for, you know, transfer of data, you know, for telecom. We have, although also doing, you know, end-to-end solution for this, like, you know, taking out the old GI wire and replacing with the OPGW cable. We have done a lot of projects in this segment. Another product, aluminum specialty alloy rods. You know, these are the rods and wires, we are catering to various segments. Mainly, you know, 6000 series are electrical grade alloys.
These are the main applications are mainly transmission line, distribution line, fittings. Some of them are used for fasteners as well. Another grade is mechanical alloy grades, 5,000 series alloys. These 5,000 series all, the application is mainly fasteners, nut and bolt manufacturing, and wire mesh industries. Some 4,000 series alloys also we manufacture. This goes to the mainly welding of, you know, aluminum plates and, you know, different, different application, is mainly welding application. We also manufacture high conductivity, high temperature resistance alloys, like Super Thermal Alloys and Extra Super Thermal Alloys. This is, you know, application is for only conductors. Now coming back to our copper business, Railway Board conductors. You know, this we have started in 2017.
So in this segment, we are the largest, number one, in terms of manufacturing capability, and as well as. We sold, you know, we have a 70% of the share. If you see, you know, in the train, above the train, there is a line, overhead line, which is called, you know, OHE line, which has got, you know, contact wire. You know, the train pantograph touches with the wire, so that is called contact wire. On top of that, catenary wire, and there is an in between dropper jumper wires are there. This is the network, you know, power, you know, this is a 25 kV power line, which supplies the electric power to the train. So there is an a pantograph. If you see, that pantograph continuously touches the, you know, the conductor.
That, that is the reason why that is called contact wire. In this segment, if you can see, you know, 70% of our market share, that means 31,000 km, route kilometers, this, you know, the conductor have been established. If you see, you know, 70%, meaning almost everywhere. If you see in Bombay, Western Line and even Central Line, these all conductors is, you know, installed by APAR. 70% market share means a huge quantity. Literally, we are monopoly in this segment. Next conductors are CTC conductors. These are copper enameled conductors in, you know, stripped with, you know, insulating paper, special insulating paper. These continuous transposed conductors are, you know, used in the transformer winding. These are the heart of the transformer.
These are very sensitive and, you know, highly technical and design-oriented conductors, and very difficult to manufacture because it requires in a special condition, dust-free environment needed. In this segment, you know, we are, you know, supplying domestic as well as also export, but gradually we are expanding in this space. Another product, copper rods, wires, busbars. Mainly industries, we are targeting here is switchgear industries, electrical panel manufacturer, and electrical substations. In some of the products going to even motor manufacturers, wherein, you know, there is an larger diameter of copper rods are being used as a rotor inside the motor. Certain elements are also, you know, supplied to the component manufacturers. Various products, we are continuously developing in this segment.
We are also, apart from the only product supply, we are into end-to-end solutions, mainly turnkey projects. We are, into, you know, reconductoring mainly, but we have started with conventional EPC. We have done four projects, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu Kashmir, but we are mainly focusing and want to develop our expertise in the reconductoring space, because in India and Bangladesh, wherever there's right-of-way, is an a big problem. And most of the, you know, old networks are now inefficient, so those networks has to be, you know, removed and, you know, modernized. And some areas, because of the power demand has grown up, the existing infrastructure network is not having capacity, so we need to increase the capacity.
If at all you want to build up a new transmission line, it takes minimum three-five years to build a new transmission line. With a cost of INR 3 crore -INR 5 crore per kilometer. It is a good solution that existing towers, you know, if you replace the only conductor part, so the time period and the cost, both will be saved, and existing lines itself, you know, the capacity can be doubled. This is a big advantage. That is the reason why this space is going to grow in future, not only in India, also in Europe, everywhere across the globe, it is going to, you know, pick up this business. That is the reason why we want to focus and develop our expertise in this segment.
So far, we have almost completed, you know, 155 projects, and many more projects are in the pipeline. Transmission lines and distribution lines, almost 10-15 distribution lines also we have completed. We are also into, you know, live lines, you know, replacement of OPGW cable. In this segment also, you know, we have done many, many projects, and we have done, in the, you know, very challenging situations, like, you know, we have created some world records in this segment. Like, you know, tallest place and you know, very difficult terrains, hilly areas, you know, such type of, you know, very challenging situations in seas, backwaters, such type of, you know, areas it is very difficult to execute the project. We got the expertise and experience in this segment. We are well-placed in this segment.
Also, we are doing telecom integration and also substation augmentation. Our next move is to, you know, go for EPC in, in the MVCC segment, that is Medium Voltage Covered Conductor segment, and also EPC underground cables. These are the some snapshots where, you know, we have carried out our projects in sea, ocean areas and, you know, backwaters, mangroves areas, you know, highest towers and, you know, dense populated areas, then, you know, in the forest and in difficult hilly terrains, such type of big, big challenges. We got a lot of experience in this area. We have a beautiful laboratory, which got, you know, accredited by the international laboratory.
We'll be able to, you know, we'll be able to conduct all the tests, type tests, you know, inside our laboratory, whereas our competitors has to go outside the country, which takes, you know, a lot of money and a lot of time. This is the competitive edge compared to our competitors. We have a strong focus on our research and development, so we are continuously developing new, new products. If you see APAR competitive edge over our competitors, premium of products, if you see, you know, HTLS conductors needs a technical know-how, and you'll have to have a, you know, design capability and execution capability. In terms of execution, you need to have a special sophisticated, you know, machines and mechanism, and peoples have to be trained peoples.
You know, skills are required to handle the carbon composite cores. You know, the customers are looking at the in this space, you know, life cycle cost, end-to-end cost. For that, you know, you'll, you'll have to, you know, design conductors and transmission line itself, you know, for lower losses, so that, you know, overall cost to the customer should be lower. That is the reason why here certain qualifying requirements are required. We have that kind of an qualifying requirement, so that is an competitive edge. You know, solutions-oriented ecosystem for trained manpower. We have got, you know, good over the years, developed our manpower skills, and we build technology. Export market, next one, the export clients are looking for, you know, specific requirements are there, like CMD sir has mentioned.
You know, they are like, you know, they want, you know, material on the short notice. Being in a largest, you know, manufacturing capacity, we have that capability to deliver the goods within very short period of time. We have the customer preferring, you know, us because, you know, we can give them then one-stop solutions, because we have the design capability. You know, if they come up with any kind of an requirement, we can design and give them the solutions. At the same time, you know, the export customers mainly looking for, you know, strong risk management framework. You know, those who have got, you know, ability to manage the risk, so that kind of an requirement they are looking for.
Tighter audit requirements, documentation, transparency, and quality, these are, you know, expectations making weaker players ineligible to this market. That is the reason why we have a great competitive advantage for getting the export customers. We have a manufacturing excellence, like, in-house R&D facility we have, and we have got very good experienced and trained people available with us, and fastest delivery due to large manufacturing capacity we have, so that, you know, we have competitive price we are offering. End-to-end solutions, like one-stop, you know, solution for the customers. You know, almost we have 165 turnkey projects, you know, experience we have, execution experience. In-house, you know, design capability we have. Technology tie-up with CTC Global. These all things making, you know, APAR as a competitive player in the market.
Our future plans and new initiatives, we are focusing on-- continuously focusing and continuously developing new projects, new products, HTLS products mainly to meet the export needs. We want to go out in the global for this reconductoring, we want to expand. And we are expanding our capacity in terms of AL59 domestic market, you know, catering the domestic market needs. You know, we have a large capacity. In spite of that, you know, we are struggling with the, you know, orders, like, you know, delivery. Delivery is a big now, the problem. So that means that much of, you know, orders are inflow is there. So we are still expanding our capacities, and we are developing import substitute products. It's like 2,000 series alloys, 4,000 series alloys we are developing. These are currently getting imported.
These are mainly application, aerospace application, lot of products are under development. Focus on marketing develop, market development for copper magnesium. Copper magnesium, we are the first to develop copper magnesium for the bullet trains, mainly, and we got approved by the RDSO. I think no other player still, you know, got approved by the RDSO for copper magnesium and copper silver. We are focusing on to increasing our market share. Presently, we have more than, you know, 55% of market-- export market share is there, we want to increase further. Here, a few, you know, awards and achievements listed here, a few of them. Being in a largest exporter, we are getting, you know, Export Excellence Award since 2012 till 2018.
Continuously, you know, year-on-year, we are getting this Export Excellency Award. Also, we know, we have got HTLS. You know, we have supplied HTLS conductors and installed. Those installed lines are, you know, successfully running in our country first time. Power Grid has given us this Excellency Award. These are the, you know, our global presence. Almost 100+ countries we are now supplying. Our presence is across the globe. Thank you.
Hi, good morning, everyone. My name is Rishabh Desai, I am currently looking after the specialty oil business. I know there, the designation says director. I do sit on the board of directors, currently, I am looking after exports for specialty oils. I will get to which oils exactly. Here is just a basic overview of the business, specialty oil business. APAR is India's largest private manufacturer and exporter of specialty oils in terms of volume. We are the world's third largest transformer oil manufacturer, our production capacity totally is over 5 lakh kiloliters of oil, that's in our two plants in India. We also have a 100% wholly owned subsidiary in the UAE, in Sharjah, in the Hamriyah Free Zone, which is where I sit.
That has a production capacity of about 1.2 lakh kiloliters. Totally, it's over 600,000 kiloliters of production. Our main four product lines in specialty oils: number one is transformer oil, so that is the flagship product. The specialty Oil Division was actually founded on transformer oil. It's my grandfather who brought the technology to India in 1969. We've been doing this for over 50 years, and we consider ourselves experts in this field. We have over 30+ grades of transformer oil, so I'll get to that in a future slide, you know, get in a little bit in-depth on that. The brands we sell under the POWEROIL brand name. We've also developed a completely biodegradable transformer oil, so that sells under POWEROIL.
NE Premium, NE stands for natural esters. There's a separate slide on that. We then have. We manufacture technical grade white oils. That's used in a plethora of industries. A few of them, to name a few, it's used in textiles, it's used in paints, it's used in spray oils for incenses and perfumes and whatnot. We have 15, you know, fast-moving primary grades, but the beauty of APAR and why we have reached where we have-- where we are right now, is because based on our customer's requirement, we are very much able to tailor-make a product to meet exactly the specifications that they require. We're basically master blenders. You know, we work with the customer to meet their requirement and specification exactly.
Thirdly, we do pharmaceutical-grade white oils, so that's used in cosmetics that come directly in contact with the human skin. We have got approvals from Johnson & Johnson, for example. We supply to them. Our UAE plant is approved by them. We supply to them in the UAE currently, are looking to supply to them in Italy and South Africa. We have the approvals for Unilever. We supply to Dabur, Marico. These are just a few names we supply our pharmaceutical-grade oils to. We have 15+ grades within pharmaceutical grade as well. The applications, there's a plethora of applications. I was just in Australia last month, actually. In Australia, for example, there's the biggest bread manufacturing company by the name of GWS, GWF, Globe Western Foods.
They-- Like, if you go to any grocery store, they're the first, you know, company you'll see loaf of bread, like, it's on eye level, you know? They, for example, use our pharmaceutical-grade oil. It's used to lubricate their cutting knives, which they use to cut the loaves of bread. That's, that's an application even I didn't, we didn't know that exists, you know? It's, it's quite mind-blowing. There's about 40, 50 different applications that we can name of, of these pharma grade white oils. That's a bit about that. It sells under POWEROIL Pearl. I forgot to mention the technical grade. The brand name is POWEROIL Topaz. We also, the fourth segment is rubber process oils, so it's used in EPDM, tires, rubbers, et cetera.
We also have 15+ grades, and generally, you know, the brand name is POWEROIL Sapphire. I'll just spend a couple minutes elaborating about transformer oil, because that is the flagship product, and we are known for that. We have, we've worked with OEMs all over the world, and we've designed over the last 50 years, a full range of products used in all types of transformers. This is just a pictorial representation. These are a few types of transformers. Now, to give you a little bit of an insight as to what's special about transformer oil. You see over here, a power transformer. These are massive transformers. You can say it's almost. The big ones can be about 1/4 the size of this room, so they're really big structures.
There's a few kiloliters of oil that go in, sometimes 20, 30 kiloliters of oil. Now, the oil is used as a coolant and an insulant to keep the transformer cool. And it's also used as a diagnostic tool. So like, you know, in a human body, you will take a sample of the blood to see the health of a person. So similarly, you will take a sample of the transformer oil, which you can use to study the health of the transformer, because these are huge machines that are connected to the grid, so it can't just be turned off and turned on. The oil that goes in this transformer, by cost of making the transformer, it's about 5%-7%, so it's not a huge chunk of the cost of the transformer.
If there's a problem with the oil, and there's a buildup of sludge, which gets, you know, entrenched in, say, the windings or damages the paper, that entire transformer can then get defunct. There could be an explosion or, you know, there's a big safety hazard, and the transformer has to be disposed of. Even though the oil is actually 5% only of the cost of the transformer, it's vital to the health of the transformer, and this oil has to last and perform in a transformer for 20 years, sometimes even 30 years. For example, you know, a car engine oil, you will change that every 10,000 km. At least that's the rule generally, they say, you know, depending on the grade, of course, and I will elaborate, but that's the rule of thumb.
Here you can only top up the oil, bit by bit, but it has to last for 20, 30 years. That's why it's such a specialized and technical product. You'll see who we have the approvals from, and there's a reason, you know, there's a very stringent approval process, et cetera. This is the slide with all the global approvals. We've been approved in all the big OEMs. You can name everyone from ABB to Brush to Hyundai, Hyosung, Siemens, to name a few. The utilities, we've-- These are just a few. We are obviously in SEWA, ADWEA in the UAE. We have Power Grid in India, Energy Australia, so there's a whole bunch.
We're approved in all the following laboratories as well, you know, Doble and NZ Oil, et cetera, Laborelec. Few areas of focus and growth. Number one, you know, transformer oil is a huge area of growth that we've identified. As spoken in the earlier slides, I won't get too much into it, but the grid is expanding. Electrification is required with the coming of electric vehicles, electricity just needs to reach the far corners, not only of our country, but of the globe as well, you know, for, for growth to take place. That's a, that's a huge, you know, area of focus.
Number two, what I wanted to focus on a little bit is the biodegradable oil, because that's a unique product that none of our competitors really have managed to make a product of this standing. It sells under the brand of NE Premium. What makes this oil so much so special is that if you see the chart on this side over here, a regular oil, it's only mineral-based oil, it's somewhere between 20%-60% biodegradable. Whereas the NE Premium oil that we have developed using a genetically modified seed, we get the oil from that, it's at least 60%-70%. The latest product, NE Premium, the latest specs that we've developed is over 90% biodegradable. Where does this come in use?
Many times you have transformers in remote locations. Say you have a mine somewhere in the forest or in a hilly area. These areas are prone to natural disasters, maybe floods, maybe earthquakes, or, you know, this transformer could be located next to a water body, for example. If there was to be a natural disaster or a leakage, what, what, whatever could happen, if it's a mineral oil and it leaks, it could lead to environmental contamination, damage, et cetera. Whereas, in the case of NE Premium, even though if there is a bad incident and the oil was to leak, it's +90 % biodegradable, so it's not gonna really have a major impact on the environment or the ecosystem. That's a, you know, a big thing.
You'll hear about sustainability later, so that's one of our kind of contributions in that sense. The world is moving towards, you know, a more sustainable outlook, and we have to be socially responsible. This is a, a unique product. What, what stands us out above our competitors is that the quality of our oil, the life of our NE Premium oil compared to any of our competitors, the life is almost 3x. Yes, we do charge a premium, but it's a very specialized product with a much better performance and life. We're very bullish on, on this front. Third, I would get to a product called hot melt adhesives. You can see hot melt adhesives, it's used in a lot of hygiene products.
It's used in diapers, sanitary napkins, fruit labels, medicine bottle labels now. I've just become a father, so I've got, now I'm getting my PhD in changing diapers, for example. You know, the sticky part which you unstick and then restick onto the diaper to, to tighten it, that is a hot melt adhesive, and our oil is used to manufacture that hot melt adhesive. Where the oil comes into play is it reduces the cost, number one. It can be used to increase or decrease the viscosity, decrease the hardness, and it improves the cold resistance. In cold countries, et cetera, you'd see that it's hard to stick things because of the temperature. The adhesive, it hardens, and, you know, the stick comes off.
Based, based on what the customer's end requirement, we have tailor-made products. We've actually worked with a lot of our customers to develop very niche products to meet their specific requirements. For example, the hot melt you need on a diaper is very different from what you need on a medicine bottle. The stickiness of that adhesive is very different. Like, on a diaper, it's supposed to restick. On a bottle, it's a one-time stick, but it has to be a much stronger seal in that sense. We've tailor-made our products to, you know, meet these various applications. Our competitive advantage is that we are only one of three global manufacturers of such a product. We offer the grades specifically for hygiene applications. You know, you need very stringent approvals for that.
Of course, as I mentioned, we have tailor-made products to suit our customers' need. Of course, we have signed confidentiality agreements because the IP, it's, I mean, the IP is the game over here, you know? Of course, we have to keep those legalities in place. Lastly, I will just come to the heavy grade of white oil, which is used in TPE, TPV. TPE, it's used in the following applications. This is just to name a few. Number one is non-staining shoes, so in the soles. If you played a racket sport, you know, you have to wear special shoes on a tennis court or a squash court, which don't stain the court. Our white oils are used in that manufacturing.
It's used for plastic bottles, toys for children, automobile parts, pen grips, toothbrushes. I mean, it's used to make mobile covers, it's used to make seals, et cetera. There's a wide variety of uses of TPE, TPV. It's an industry that we've identified as a very high-growth industry. There's huge opportunities in markets like Turkey, where we actually do have a joint venture, and we are blending certain products locally and selling to all these big TPE manufacturers. In terms of a competitive advantage, again, on this front, we are offering tailor-made products to suit customers' exact specifications and needs. We have very variable blending capacity that empowers us to manufacture even micro batches for niche applications.
It's very different manufacturing a 500, you know, kiloliter batch of transformer oil versus a 20-kiloliter batch of, say, a niche product that's required. It's, you know, the, the accuracy has, is completely different in making that blend. We have that ability and, you know, the, the, infrastructure in place. Thirdly, as I mentioned, we have blending facilities around the globe. In Turkey, we have a joint venture, and we blend transformer oils as well as these, heavy-grade white oils over there and sell in, in the surrounding, markets. We do have a storage agreement in Australia. We have a storage agreement in South Africa. We have a plant in the UAE and in India as well. You know, globally, we've increased our global footprint in that sense to be able to deliver our products more efficiently and quickly and cheaper to our customers.
I think that's, it from my side. I'll, pass it on to Sundar to go ahead with the lubricants. Thank you.
Good morning. I'd like to take you through the lubricants side of the business for APAR. The lubricants side of the business was started sometime in 2007. We are a relatively new entrant into the lubricants. If you're aware of the background on the lubricants side of the business, the lubricants side of business was decontrolled by the government of India way back in 1992. The first wave of multinationals entering into these markets happened between 1992 to 1998, and the second wave broadly took place between 2001 to 2004. If you were to actually see the entry of lubricants for APAR, which is basically on the heavier side of the oils that we play on, we started this business sometime in 2007.
Whatever we have done and we have built on this business is in the last 15, 16 years of what we have done on the lubricants side, where the market's more or less been more stable and markets got very organized. Our foray into the lubricant side of the business happened through a technological tie-up with ENI of Italy, and that's how we started our entry into the lubricant side of the business. We operate primarily two brands, which is ENI and ARKOS, which is an own brand for the retail venture that we do within the market. We sell our industrial oils and industrial specialty lubricants under the POWEROIL brand.
In a span of the last 15, 16 years, if you look at this market, the markets, the addressable, additivated volume market for lubricants in India is about 2.3 billion metric tons, and we've kind of, in the last 15 years, grown this business to take on a share of close to about 3% in the overall market of additives. We are in the process of expanding our footprints globally also into this business, and we are looking at the extended Indian market, as you call it, basically Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, where we are already present and have a well-established distribution network for lubricants, and expanding now into Middle East and Africa into our business. Exports moving forward shall become a key area of focus for us in lubricants.
Just to give you an idea of the product range that we are talking about, basically, we would like to split this under two broad application categories, basically going towards automotive or on-road applications. Industrial, basically more B2B, and for factories, various solutions across there. If you look at the on-road automotive side of business, you're basically looking at personal mobility and commercial. It's basically looking at motorcycle oils, passenger car engine oils, and of course, commercial vehicles, light, heavy, all put together. On the off-road side of lubricants in the automotive side, you're basically looking at construction and infrastructure, basically looking at excavators, backhoe loaders, stuff of those kind, and also very similar application of off-road is agriculture, basically tractors.
Just to give you some broad areas of why these markets are of interest, we are the third largest heavy commercial vehicle producer in the world. We are the largest tractor manufacturer in the world, and so a good presence on commercial infra. We are the largest backhoe manufacturer, second largest backhoe manufacturer now in the world, and should be soon the largest backhoe equipment manufacturer in the world. Looking at construction, infra, off-road, off-road automotive applications will increasingly become more and more interesting as a business and very sustainable. On the personal side, of course, you will see some headwinds coming in, basically, of all the talk that we have had around EV.
On the industrial side of the business, you have a plethora of products for gearboxes, hydraulic applications, turbine oils, basically so much of electrification activity going on in power generation, so turbine oils, compressor oils. We also have a slew of product lines on the metalworking side, basically for cutting fluids, quenching oils, for example, for hardening of metals, stuff of those kind. Very, very special. Where are we focused on? Some of the niche applications that we believe which are going to be future, where basically on gas engine oils, generating power, both mobile and stationary gas engine oil applications, we see a lot of scope coming on for. We believe that moving forward, there will be a lot of gasification, liquid fuels getting converted into gaseous fuels for application, so that's a big area of work.
Marine engine oils is an area where we are working on and trying to expand into our business. Personal mobility side, increasingly moving away from manual transmissions to automatic transmissions for driving comfort. You will see a lot of, you know, spurt of automatic transmission fluids coming in, niche products, high-margin items. We are also looking at specialty fluids like coolants and brake fluids, which are increasingly going to come. By the way, coolants and brake fluids are going to be, you know, power agnostic. When I mean power agnostic, whether it's EV or whether it's fuel-led, this is an area of business that will continue to work, and it will be agnostic to the kind of fuel that you're using.
On the industrial side, we see a huge play coming up for specialty cutting fluids, rust preventives, rolling fluids, drilling fluids, some of those special applications that you see, and a huge push coming on on the off-road side for infrastructure and mining solutions. We are working on this very aggressively, and some of our growth and positions that we have taken over the last 15 years are going to be insulated from these kind of changes that are happening in, which I like to take forward on my subsequent slides. If you look at our business on the automotive side of business, it's predominantly distribution-led. Having a good infrastructure, having a good distribution network is going to be key to moving forward in this business. Our infrastructural side, we have a well-established distribution network now.
We have about five mega warehouses for stocking our products across the country, and close to about 14 satellite depots, which are fed from these mega warehouses. The serviceability of our product lines through our distribution network is pretty much well established now. If you look at just a break of how things have been moving on in terms of, in terms of, the network size that we have, we've kind of had almost around 485 distributors, out of which close to about 370 are exclusively working on aftermarket retail automotive products, and close to about 112 distributors working purely on the industrial side. If you look at our distribution network now, we are well established to get product to the customers at the right time, across all our product lines, across the geography of our country.
We're pretty much well established on our distribution side. If you look at the strengths that I wanted to bring on, we have a settled distribution now on, on automotive side, on the B2C side, both auto and industrial. Products have been well established. It's over 15 years that we have been putting up our products in. We are also working on newer products, which can be fed through the same distribution network, so that we get a better productivity out of the same distribution network. We are foraying into batteries and tires, to reach the customer through the same distribution network.
We have worked extensively on digitalization of our distribution network, so we have, for example, a digital platform that's been established for our influencers, which is a mechanic program that we have. We have over 75,000 mechanics enrolled in the program nationally, and we have close to about 30,000 who are active, participating on it on a month-on-month basis on this program. We are working on a similar program that we are running in for our dealers, which is our retailers across distribution in our channel. We are strengthening our digital initiatives on our distribution side of the business.
Of course, we have started to work very closely with for channel finance to our distribution, so that we are insulating our businesses from the financial requirement needs that we want, and so we can expand through the same distribution network. On the B2B side, we have a significant presence on industrial fluids, and moving forward, we believe that the B2B side the industrial fluid side of the business will grow far more aggressively than the automotive side of business. This is predominantly going to remain insulated from whatever changes are happening on the fuel side, on the automotive side of the business. We have a significant presence in industrial now. Similarly, we're working very, very aggressively on expanding our metalworking portfolios. Our focus remains on infrastructure.
We have specialized products now for off-road applications, both on infrastructure equipment as well as on agriculture. Agriculture, agricultural sector remains our key strength. Taking off from what I said on the last slide, we are a leading supplier for fluids in tractors. We have significant exposures on all the leading top five tractor manufacturers, and also the Tier One suppliers for these tractor manufacturers, somebody like Carraro or Dana, for example, giving axle solutions to both tractor and construction equipment solutions. We are working with other leading Tier 1 OEM brands also in the aftermarket to expand our position on the lubricant side.
On the export side of the business, we've recently established our office out of Dubai for export opportunities, focusing around the Middle East market and also, to a large extent, into Africa, which I believe are opportunities that we need to capture and expand into very, very fast. We would be probably one of the faster movers in this segment for export opportunities that we are looking, looking up for in these emerging markets. Coming back to all the discussion that we had on EV. Our view on the EV side is that the personal mobility segment, which is basically motorcycles and cars, are the ones which are going to be slightly impacted because of the move from fuel-led vehicles into EV.
Currently, the EV sales are just about 1 million units in a year, in comparison to about 1.3 million units of ICE vehicles in a month. It's going to, it's going to be a substantial catch-up that needs to be done by the EV industry to even make a significant impact in a business like ours. It's still early days for EV. We believe, with the recent changes on the subsidy that has been given on withdrawal of subsidies that have happened on the EV side of business for two-wheelers, with effect from July, the sales are actually tending to taper off for EV two-wheelers at around 50,000-60,000 units a month.
That's it, the game is still to play out, and our view is that it will be at least 8-10 years before the EVs make a significant impact on the sale of ICE, internal combustion engine, in two-wheeler vehicles. On the passenger car side, our view is that pure EVs are going to have their own limitations, and we see the passenger car sector to be more moving towards hybrid vehicles, which is a combination of an ICE with a with a battery that's going to be the go-to choice, simply because of the driving range requirements of the user. So that's a forward movement, and we don't see that to have a significant impact on the lubricant side of the business. The take on commercial vehicles, you need to look at commercial vehicles in 2 different forms.
1 is, of course, buses for passenger movement. That's the segment which will predominantly get electrified, which is intracity operations. We still believe the long-haul bus operations, inter- intercity operations, will still remain fuel-led or will move to gas, basically a combination of either LNG or CNG. The long-haul commercial vehicles will still remain predominantly fuel-led, could be diesel or a combination of diesel and some moving towards LNG. We don't see significant impact coming from the commercial side of the vehicle, you know, lubricant demand. Yes, the personal mobility side will, in the short term, have very minimal impact, but in the long term, will have a decent impact in terms of how the lubricant business will play out.
I believe, this will be more than compensated in the way the industrial business will grow, and significantly compensate for whatever small losses that you will see on the electrification impact in the automotive side of business. We see significant positions that we have already built up, both on the ENI and POWEROIL side, to keep on continuing to grow and reap benefits for us on the industrial side of the business. With manufacturing focus coming in India, we see premiumization of usage of products that are coming in, in especially niche applications. The cost of equipment that's increasingly coming on to do some of the infrastructural jobs, are significantly becoming higher and higher.
As a result, the choice of lubricants that are going into these kind of equipments, are getting premiumized, and the customers are more or, more or less working with only organized oil players. As a result, we are seeing better ability to penetrate and service those markets. Premiumization is the way forward on the industrial side of the business, for sure. We, we remain focused on industrial metalworking, infra, and mining as a segment for us to move forward and grow our lubricant business. On the automotive side, as I said, though the blips might be very, very small on the personal mobility side of business in the short term, we still see that the vehicle park is significantly improving.
If you look at the two-wheeler and the three-wheeler space, sorry, two-wheeler and the passenger car space, you're consistently seeing growths happening at a CAGR of around 5%-6% on the two-wheeler side, and you're looking at a CAGR growth of almost close to about 10%-11% on the passenger car side. With the vehicle car park, vehicle park improving in the market, we clearly see the automotive segment continuing to grow, at least in the near term, for sure. EV adoption, as I mentioned, still remains reasonably low, and the infrastructure needs to really catch up, which was what was earlier also mentioned in a slide, before EV starts to make a significant impact in the business.
Our view is that gas adoption is more likely going to happen, and that's what is going to be the way forward, at least in the near term for us, both in the personal mobility as well as in the commercial mobility segment. That's about it from my side. Thank you.
Good morning, everyone. I'll just, before I start the presentation, like to give you a brief about myself. Been 35 years in the cable and wire industry. Started my career in cables and wire way back in 1988. Seven years in Nicco, two years in Ducab, based out of Bahrain. Six years, I was on my own, entrepreneur, the distributor for cables and wires. 19 years in Polycab. When I resigned, I was an executive president of Polycab, I am in APAR for last, 14 months now. Like my earlier speakers, we are the market leaders in conductors, we are the market leaders in oil. As far as cable solutions are concerned, I think you can gauge yourself where we are today, but I would like to say that we are the market leaders in specialty cables.
As my chairman mentioned, that we would like to be the top three players in whichever segment we are. Yes, we have an ambition to be in the top three cable and wire manufacturer in India. Just to give you a brief about the cable and wire industry. Cable and wire industry, FY 2023, was around INR 65,000 crore. That means INR 65,000 crore of cables and wires were produced in India, out of which, some of which was sold outside India. As far as APAR is concerned, FY 2023, we were the largest exporter of cables from India to different countries, and we were the largest exporter of cables to U.S. market. If you'll see the breakup, 43% is low-voltage cables, 37% was light-duty cable. Light-duty cables means house wires, flexibles, and panel wires.
In fact, three years back, that 37% was 27%, so a lot of the small-scale manufacturers have wiped out, and the focus have shifted to the larger manufacturer. That's the reason the share of the major players have gone up. This data. It's a published data of IEEMA, that is Indian Electrical and Electronics Manufacturers Association. If you see last year, the cable business has grown by about 26% and LDC business by 17%. Overall, growth is 23%. I think most of you would be tracking these numbers. Again, it's the published numbers. If you see the growth, APAR has grown by 64% in last 12 months, that is FY 2023 numbers. If you see some of our competition, the way they have grown.
Other aspect is, we have continuously grown at a CAGR of about 23%. The comparison is there. I'm sure all of you would be having this comparison. We are the only company who's got this wide range of products. The kind of products what we have, I do not think any other cable company in India has got the range what we have. Like power cables and wires, I think most of the guys would be having this LT cables, HT cables, up to 132 kV. We have covered conductor. Again, it's a unique product, what we have.
We are the market leaders in conductors, so we produce covered conductors, and last, a lot of these utility companies have shifted to covered conductors in densely, I would say, forest area, where the forest catches fire, so there's a protection on the conductor so that the fire is avoided. We are the market leaders in elastomeric and E-Beam cables. I will briefly explain you about what E-Beam is all about. Solar, we are the market leaders. Wind, we are the market leaders. Railways, yes, we are the market leaders. We have ship wiring, trailing cables. In the cement plant, its trailing cables are used. Welding cables, mining cables, EPR, auto cables. House wire, again, we have Anushakti, which is an electron beam house wire, which others do not have. Rest of the other products we also have.
we have whenever someone is building an house, he needs an house wire, he needs a Cat 6 cable for computer application, he needs a coaxial cables for television, then he needs a telephone wire. we have the entire basket of product, which are which would be used if somebody is making an house. we are the only company with a maximum number of approvals from UL. UL is a must for exporting cables to U.S. we've got around 18 such approvals, and very shortly, I'm expecting an approval for medium voltage cables. Currently, we are there in low voltage cables, renewables, wind, solar, but very shortly, another two months' time, we will have an approval for medium voltage cables. Another vertical we have is the cable harness. we supply harness to solar, auto, railways, and wind projects.
Harness is nothing but, we supply cables with conductors exact length, what is required for the OEM manufacturer, so that there are no wastages. The crimping happens in the factory. It's a highly skilled automotive machines, what we have, which does the crimping, rather than depending on the low-skill workers at the site. Some of the sectors, we are there. Distribution, power transmission distribution, we are there. Renewable, we are the market leaders. Railways, I'm happy to say 98% of the cables and wires used in Vande Bharat are of APAR. Whatever trains you have seen in- on track, 98% of cables is ours. We are discussing with the other manufacturers. Bombardier has got an order from Indian Railways for producing Vande Bharat train.
Happy to say that we recently got an approval from Bombardier for supplying these cables. Siemens has got an order for over 1,200 locomotives to be supplied to Indian Railways in the next 10 years. I'm happy to say that we are the only Indian vendor approved by Siemens, Germany, for supplying cables and wires to these locomotives. We work very closely with Defense. Honorable Prime Minister's Project Atmanirbhar Bharat, we work very closely with Military, Navy, and Air Force in indigenizing the import component of cables and wires. Automobile, yes, EV charging and electrical vehicles, we are there in-- I think, my chairman mentioned of some names, JBM, Electra EV, Switch Mobility, we are working with.
IT and data center is a new customer base we thought we will attack on, and happy to say we recently received an order for about INR 17 crore for Microsoft data center in Hyderabad. It's a beginning for us, and most of the consultants have approved us, name it, a consultant of Amazon, NTT, STT, Yotta. In next couple of years, we will have a major foray in the data centers. Real estate, again, we formed a separate vertical to tackle the real estate business. Industrial, we are already there. What is it when I said that we are the market leaders in specialty cables? Innovation is at core as far as APAR is concerned. Solar cables, life is 25 years.
Ultraviolet radiation, because the string wires are exposed to atmosphere, it has to sustain the temperature, and it has to sustain the anti-rodent, take care of the anti-rodent properties when it, strings are used in solar panels. Anushakti, high ampacity wires, again, I will be presenting. We have supplied fire survival cables to Sydney Metro, Australia. World over, the fire survival cable has to sustain a temperature of 950 degrees Celsius. In Australia, the specification called for 1,050 degrees Celsius. We got our cables tested in Australian laboratory. We supplied fire survival cables to Sydney Metro. Currently, I am supplying fire survival cables to a tunnel project from Sydney Airport to a particular station, which is a 16-kilometer tunnel being built by the authorities there. We are the only Indian player who are supplying these cables there.
Again, as I said, since we are working very closely with Defense, like, we've developed optical BI fiber cables for torpedoes for Indian Navy. We also developed tether cables for DRDO. It's for Air Force. We are also doing, developed tactical cables for military operation, and my team is working very closely with Defense in developing some of the critical cables and wires used, in the Defense. Just coming to the E-Beam technology, like house wires, what others are selling are normal PVC house wires, the market leaders who are there. We came out with a product called Anushakti, which is a electron beam product. What is E-Beam? E-Beam is nothing, but it's a small reactor. An approval taken from Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, which they visit our factory, and on a periodic basis, the approvals are given.
There's an electron gun which accelerates and bombards electron on the wires. By doing this, what is happening is, the bonding of the chemical properties of the compound used is far, far superior than the way the other normal manufacturers are producing wires. This electron beam irradiated cables and wires offer superior performance based on the compound used, either it's PVC or XLP or elastomeric. This is an unique product. In fact, we were doing these cables for Nuclear Power Corporation. The nuclear reactors, the life of a nuclear reactor is 50 years. Tarapur Nuclear Plant One and Two, I think they are completing 50 years in another one or two years. NPC is going to decide whether they want to dismantle and put up a new nuclear plant in Tarapur.
We did a load cycle test, a long duration test, and our cables produced with E-Beam technology surpassed those 50 years life. When this happened, APAR felt, the management or the team felt, "Why don't we introduce this product in domestic wires?" We introduced this product in domestic wires. Now, what happens to this product? These wires can sustain a temperature of 105 degrees Centigrade against 70 degrees Centigrade of normal PVC. By increasing the properties of the insulation, these wires can carry 50% more current than the normal PVC. As I said, since we have done this test for Nuclear Power Corporation, the life of these wires is 50 years plus. Oxygen index, 33%. What is oxygen index? Oxygen index is the time taken for the fire to travel on the wire.
When it's 33%, it takes a longer time in case of a fire, so that it does not become a transporting agent for fire. Most important in APAR Anushakti electron beam house wire, it is melt resistant. Normally, in the event of fire, short circuit happens at the contact, at the place where the switches and the fire travels through the wire. Here we are saying nothing is going to happen to your wire, even though you increase the temperature by about even 75%-80%. It takes care of the overload current. It is a melt-resistant wire. We are promoting this product big time with the fire authorities. We are trying to see whether we can form a legislation or so that this product can be introduced by other manufacturers also.
We are talking of safety of the human life, and in fact, today there is a conclave happening, happening in Jio Centre on fire safety, where we have participated. My team is there. We are trying to promote more of this product to take care of the human life. Majority of the people die because of-- The fire takes place because of the short circuit, and people die mainly because of suffocation. It's very important what is the type of insulation one uses in producing the wires. Last year, we did around INR 3,300 crore. We had a capacity utilization of 88%. In case I have to grow my numbers, I have to increase my bandwidth, I need to have the capacity to produce further. These are some of the CapEx, what we are doing in FY 2024.
We recently commissioned a CCV line for rubber cables, by commissioning this, I'm adding another INR 250 crore of production. In July, we commissioned a new plant in the existing near our existing premise. I think some of you would be visiting our factory tomorrow. It's a plant which is commissioned at seven and a half acres, which can add or produce around INR 900 crore of cables, and primarily, the entire production is meant for U.S. market. We commissioned one more CV line for HT cables, which can produce up to 132 kV, which will add another INR 250 crore, and we are going to commission an E-Beam line. We already have four lines. We are the largest E-Beam installed company.
We're having one more line, which is coming up for 1.2 MeV, which we will use for house wires. Exports. 51% of my last year's turnover was export. 18 UL approvals, CPR approval required for European market. Enel is a utility company based out of Italy. We are the only Indian vendor approved at Enel. Enel has a utility network in Italy, Spain, Romania, Chile, Peru. We are one of those preferred vendor as far Enel is concerned. MV cables UL approval is expected in two months. Market leaders in Enel cables. I told you about FS Cables. Out of this 51% of the exports, what we did, 66% was to U.S. and Latin America, 10% to Europe, Africa, 10% of the turnover to Australia, 10%-- sorry, Australia is around 8%, and Europe is around 10%.
We are, again, a larger supplier of solar cables into Australia market, besides this fire survival cables. Demand drivers, I think my chairman has articulated well in the previous slide. I do not want to go deep into it, but whatever investments are happening, maybe it's infrastructure, railways, or renewable. Sometime back, as an industry leader, we had an opportunity to interact with the Honorable Power Minister, Mr. R. K. Singh, and he is very clear about the numbers, what he's talking about. He's talking about doubling the power generation capacity by 2x by 2030. When he's talking of 2x, and out of which 80% of the generation is going to happen from renewable, maybe it's wind, solar, nuclear. He was very clear.
He made one statement: "If you guys do not increase your capacity, if you are not be in-- will be in a position to supply material, do not blame me if I open out exports, Or imports." We, company like us, we are gearing ourselves to expand, and we are again, talking of a three-year expansion CapEx, so that, we fulfill the requirement, what is required for the Indian market. Coming to the B2C segment, APAR was always a B2B company. Last year, 6% of our turnover was B2C. When we say B2C, it is the house wires and flexibles which are being sold through the retail channel. In next few years' time, we want to take it somewhere between 10%-12%. This is a very conservative number. I'm sure this would be more than that.
We are the first company to produce E-Beam house wires. We signed up Sonu Sood as a Brand Ambassador last year. We were an associate sponsor in February 2023 for Women's Premier League. We have finalized sponsorship for Asia Cup, which will be on by this month end. We're doing a lot of activities as far as ground is concerned, to promote our Anushakti product. At this point of time, we are focusing more on Tier 2 or Tier 3 cities, and now in this financial year, maybe by Q3, Q4, we will be in Tier 1 and metro cities, too. Footprints expanded to 19 states. Successful pilot model are in Kerala and Gujarat. I sell roughly about INR 75 crore-INR 80 crore out of INR 250 crore of wires in Kerala alone. What are we trying to do to increase this business?
Expanding distribution to reach 50% districts in this financial year. Out of what, 650 odd districts, we want to be more than 300 districts in this financial year. Expanding retailer network and maximizing direct reach. We formed a separate vertical for builders and MEP consultants, and builders do form a major portion of buyers when it comes to house wires. We are focusing on top 250 builders of India. We are focusing on top, top 250 MEP consultants and MEP contractors in India. We have identified those customers. The team is in place, so we have stationed guys on a strategic location wherever major consultants are located. We're doing a lot of electrician meets and Nukkad meets, so that our product is a preferred product. Like, as I said, Gujarat and Kerala, it's a pilot.
We are purely on a distribution mode. We are following up the distribution model, what FMCG companies are doing. We are not dependent on wholesalers, we have a distributor in each and every district. We are talking of maybe even if I'm talking of, say, 300 distributor, 300 districts in this year, there will be 300 distributors also in this financial year. All the pink ones are the new territory which we entered in last year, Q4. Yellow ones are those one which we have just formed a team in Q1, FY 2024. White patches are we yet to open. We are strategically opening out the markets, we are not there in MP, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Ladakh, Punjab, Uttaranchal, and even some of the Northeast.
We are, we are present in Assam, we are present in Mizoram, we are present in Manipur, but strategically, we are opening up the market for the 90 meters. When it comes to channel expansion, as I said, our target, I mentioned 300 districts, but our target is we should have around 267 distributors. We have identified the towns where we should have presence. FY 2022, our retail presence was 276. FY 2023 was 2,400. We want to take it to 6,700 retailers. State presence from 2 to 13 to 19 in this year. Number of electricians whom we have connected was 73,000 in FY 2023, which we want to take it to 146,000 or 150,000 electricians. As Sundar mentioned earlier, that in automobile lubricants, he's got mechanical loyalty program and retailer loyalty program.
We would be launching an electrician loyalty program and a retailer loyalty program on 1st of October, so that we have direct connect with all those electricians and the retailers. The best part of ours is, if you have, if I have to convince someone to buy APAR Anushakti wire, and if I'm going to tell him that, "Okay, this wire is, will carry 50% more current, it is a melt resistant," I need to prove it. We have a demo kits. Every sales executive carries a demo kit. We demonstrate in front of the customers how and why we are saying that our product is superior. We do a lot of demos.
In fact, when we say demos, demos are meant for individual customer, the a person who builds an individual bungalow or who is renovating a house, our guys go there and do demonstration. Our target is to do around 60,000 demonstration in this year. That means 5,000 demonstration every month. Electrician meet and Nukkad meet put together is around 7,000, we are talking of on a daily basis, 20-25 Nukkad meets and electrician meets happening on a pan-India level. We have taken a huge budget as far as doing these activities going forward, because we need to establish our brand. What is the competitive advantage? There are market leaders as far as cables and wires are concerned.
One thing, let me tell you one thing, let me tell you one is: earlier, there are a lot of smaller companies who are playing around with the quality of the product. Today, most of the larger players have started playing around the quality of the product. I'm making this statement, I think some of my industry colleagues also would probably would make this statement. At APAR, the kind of products what the conductor and oil has been producing, we will not play around with the quality. We will not play with the safety of the people. We will ensure that whatever we produce meets all the requirements. I'm proud to say that last year, we supplied INR 1,100 crore of cables to U.S. market. We have not received a single complaint, neither from U.S., nor from Australia, nor from any other part.
Whatever we produce, we -- it will be a quality product. India's only cable company, we will be having-- We have got plans of adding on more E-Beam lines. Leading player in solar and wind, as far as India is concerned, we would like to take that into the global market. Highest number of UL certificate for Indian manufacturer. Harness is one business, we are very serious about it. even in solar, when we supply string wires, we do receive complaints on workmanship at the site where the labors do the crimping. People who are not very educated, not very qualified, do the crimping at the site. We thought we will have a high-tech, state-of-the-art harness factory going forward, so that the problem of crimping and termination at the site is taken care of.
By doing this, we will solve problems of a lot of contractors who are doing work for in Railways, wind manufacturers, solar and even auto. Going forward, I think, we have formed a telecom business. Girish will talk more about telecom. That is one business I think we will be jointly working together. I think we will take that to a different level. Besides that, Indian Defense has looked at APAR as their partners going forward. I think they are discussing only with us for development or indigenization of various cables and wires, which they would have bought from Russia, France, or Austria. We are one of the most preferred vendor as far as Indian Defense is concerned.
Thank you very much. Thanks a lot.
We have a tea break now for about 15 minutes. Request everybody to join back by 11:45 A.M. for the next sessions. Thank you.
Can I have your attention, please? Welcome back from the tea break, let me introduce myself. I'm Girish Gupta. I've joined APAR approximately 10 months back. H eading the telecom vertical, responsible for building telecom vertical for APAR. I would like to congratulate each one of you in this room for landing of Chandrayaan yesterday. It's because of this communication which happens between the space station and the lander, which landed at the moon. I'll walk you through the telecom vision of APAR, primarily. My earlier speakers had a journey of 15 years, 20 years, 50 years. I have a journey of 15 months, where we started and how we started. We'll talk about that, but what's the vision of APAR? Why APAR is here, what it entails to APAR, and how APAR plans to do that. That's the whole purpose of telecom vision, which we would like to share with you. I'll start with the why part of APAR.
I hope each one of you will be able to relate this in your lives that 2010 was the era from 2000 that we were all voice-dominated industry. 2010-2020, we became a video-dominated industry, and now the telecommunication is changing shape to virtually what we call a virtuality-based industry from now onwards to 2030, depending on the country. What exactly changed? The phones have changed from featured phones to smartphones, now to connected devices. What exactly it means, basically, for all of us in this room? Kbps to Mbps to Gbps, we all understand we need more data. What exactly is happening is, earlier, we were digitally connected, then we were actually consuming digital era, which was video. Now, actually, we are living digital life.
Any one of you can say, if we don't have phones, if we don't have connectivity, is there a life for us? The answer is no. That's where the world is changing. This world is transforming, changing, but how fast, how quick, it's important for us to understand. If I look at it, video consumption has been 60% till date. Primary consumption of the data comes from video consumption, because that's a basic way of doing it. Gaming and software, another area where the industry has picked up. There are a lot of gaming companies which are becoming now unicorns across the world market because of this reason. Social networking, another. Facebook, like, any, any social working site is making a stride into the market. AR/VR is just entering into this space. Where is India in this space?
Typically, worldwide, the consumption per user, a mobile user, is 20 GB, but India stands at 25 GB. This is growing at a rate of 25% CAGR, as we speak. It's expected that today, what we consume, we'll consume double of that in next five years. If we are going to consume double of that, what we are using today, how we are going to sustain that? Where it's going to come from? Even on the data side, today, world is consuming 120 exabytes of data. If you see this graph carefully, this graph tells the consumption of data is going to go down. We are moving towards a downward trend. Look at that aspect, that 30% of that consumption will be more than consumption done in 2018 or 2019.
Whole year consumption, that's the kind of consumption growth we are expecting, the market is expecting to happen. If this kind of consumption is going to grow, what is required in our networks? What exactly is changing? That's very, very important. Does this video consumption and gaming going to give us that kind of data growth? The answer is no. What exactly is happening? Beyond 5G, which we all heard here every day as a buzzword in the industry, beyond 5G, lot of happening. My previous speaker spoke about agriculture, transport, healthcare, education. Think of this way, what we are selling in the other divisions, all of them will require a telecommunication system. Today, high-speed internet is moving. Gaming sector is moving from local servers to cloud gaming.
I want to play with people sitting in Europe, people sitting in US, people sitting some other parts of the world, in some cities. That's where the gaming is shifting. Agriculture, it's going to be AI, ML-based information, technology, developed solutions provided into the market to deliver that. Logistics, which is a big play for everyone, it's going to be fully integrated based on the whole solutions, telecom solutions, IoT solutions, which are going to run a different set of-- Healthcare. Again, remote villages are getting connected. You will be able to provide the best healthcare to the remote locations with the help of telecommunication again. This is changing. Education has seen some light in day of COVID, time of COVID. Now, education is shifting much faster. We are seeing the home schools coming. Homeschooling is coming to India and different parts of the world.
What exactly it means, basically? By 2030, we'll have 15% more SIM connections. SIM connections are not going to go up, but 114% of the penetration of connectivity will happen. One larger shift which is happening in the market is 50% of our network will be 5G-based network, which is today only 12%. 4G will be balance of that 40%, and only all 2G, 3G, all kind of technologies will go off. Only 8%-10% will remain in that. That's one big shift which is happening. Second big shift which is happening is. IoT devices, machine-to-machine communication is going to become a very, very integral part of our life. We project that 5.3 billion devices will get IoT connected in the times to come.
It will create definitely a number of jobs, and it will contribute 5% to the GDP of the world, which is $6 trillion. That's where the telecommunication industry is heading to, that's where we want to, APAR want to make a foray in that set of industry. Today, the telcos, who are the primary customers for the telecom consumption in the world, what does it mean for them? Their network, we talked about all these applications coming in. We talked about the number of connections, they have to double down their investments. If somebody is investing X today, they'll be investing 2x in next five years. That kind of investment we envisage in the market coming for us. There's IoT and a private sector play. IoT, I spoke about.
Private enterprises and private networks is another play which is evolving, emerging in the market of the telecommunication space, where we'll have a hybrid networks. The industries like APAR, other industries will have their own networks to communicate between the IoT devices, and they'll have a 5G network running on it. Edge data centers, to address the latency part of the network, there'll be huge investment happening in edge data centers. That's a sector I think Shashi spoke about as well, that on the power side, we are addressing, on the telecommunication side also, we'll be addressing that sector as well. Quality of service, that's a very big task. We have moved from 3G to 4G to 5G, but the call drops is still an issue. The quality of the network is still an issue.
The operators plan to spend a huge set of money to deliver that quality of service in the networks. Basically, what it means is the telcos have to become from a mobility company to a technology company, to a whole telecommunication IoT-based entities. That's where the industry is going to shift, and that's where APAR play is going to come as we speak, move forward. I see a roughly $1.3 trillion to get spent by the operators in next five years, which turns out to be $0.2 trillion annually, which is a big number in this space. One is what they will invest, and the other is where the investments are already being announced in different parts of the world. India, we know that we are only 35% connected on the towers.
We have roughly 2.5 lakh towers, mobile towers, I'm talking. 2.5 lakhs towers, which exist in Indian market. With the advent of 5G, this number of towers is going to go multifold. I'll talk about that. This needs at least to get 70% fiber connected, and that's our primary product, which APAR has, optical fiber cable. That's the core product for that kind of connectivity. Worldwide, I see that, roughly 530 operators have tried their hands on 5G networks right now, but out of that, only 50% of that is able to officially launch 5G. We can imagine the amount of 5G networks getting launched across the world market. Only 41 carriers are doing, standalone-based 5G. Rest all are still on a non-standalone basis.
I'll say five years onwards also, 2030 onwards also, this demand is going to peak further up as we get into this market. Fiber to the home. We all heard that fiber to the home, it was not that prominent before COVID, but after COVID, we realized connectivity is the key, and fiber to the home became the necessity of life. India added roughly 10 million homes in last two years. The way we are today, we will add 10 million homes year-on-year basis as a country, and that's where we are heading to as a nation. Worldwide, if you say U.K. has announced very clearly, they will have 25 million homes by 2025. China is the market leader in this space, and they already have deployed fiber to the home.
Now they are moving ahead, which we are not thinking as a country right now, is fiber to the room. Each room to have a fiber connected so that you can have those IoT devices in each of your room, where you can move it forward. There's another-- One is this urban network we talked about, 5G, fiber to the home. There are rural networks, where the government investment is coming. BharatNet, two weeks back, cabinet has approved INR 139,000 crore in this program to connect to 6.5 lakh villages across India. They've already connected 1.7 lakh villages, 70,000 villages, and they plan to connect balance. It's a big layout. It's a program rolled out for next three years.
That 2024, 2025, 2026 is going to be this money spent in India itself. U.S., as a market, has announced $42 billion getting spent on rural connectivity of U.S. markets, again, for connecting the rural U.S., where the connectivity is less than 25 Mbps. It's again, a program of four years, starting 2024, launching till 2028. That's another set of huge opportunity available to us. U.K. has launched $5 billion Giganet project, where they said they will connect every rural home, approximately 80% by 2025, and 99% by 2030. That's a set of investment, if I say, in telecom sector, which is happening both by private sector as well as the government bodies across the global markets. That's the play which APAR is trying to.
play in, get into it. Just to give you a perspective what 5G means. We all hear 5G across, but what 5G means for APAR or what 5G is, how 5G is relevant for APAR. As I mentioned earlier, we are talking about 10 times the speed of the network, from 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps. We are talking about latency of 10 milliseconds to 1 millisecond. Both latency and speed makes the network different. In 3G network, we always needed only one tower in 10-kilometer area. In 4G network, that becomes one site at 2-kilometer area. In 5G network, one site become, there are 20 sites in 0.5 kilometer area. Every 0.5 kilometer, you will have a site, and 10 kilometers will have number of sites. What does it mean for us?
It means that whatever fiber was getting consumed in the past, 16 times more fiber will get consumed in the networks. That's where, the fiber demand of the country will go up multi-fold with the help of 5G. Why APAR foraying into telecom solutions business? We said the market dynamics are right for us. There is a massive digital transformation happening, whether it's, zero latency, whether it's hyperscale to edge data centers, whether it's Web 3.0. There's a focus areas. We have identified our focus areas, that converge networks and data centers remains a focus area for us. Rural connectivity happening, 5G, IoT, M2M is happening, that all these multiple investments are happening for next five to seven years. There's a enough tailwind for any organization to enter in this space. We defined our portfolio of APAR, that these are the solutions.
OFC solutions, LAN and 5G solutions, convergence network solutions, and network services to provide end-to-end services. Why these solutions? It's very, very important when we identify this, where do we play as a competitive advantage in this space? We have a largest product range for the evolving market needs, not from the past market, but what is lying in future, we'll have the largest product range in that space. I'll talk about that product range. We already have NABL lab, which is the extensive testing lab for any kind of fiber plus copper network solutions.
We have a capability, like, all of my earlier speakers spoke about. Innovation is the key, customization is the key. That's where we have a capability as an organization to customize the solutions and provide an innovative mindset to provide a value to our customers. We leverage upon on our experience of exporting to more than 140 countries. As a company, we do that. That's another thing which adds value straightaway to the telecom solution business of APAR. In telecom solution business, we have first line of business is optical fiber cable, which we manufacture at the full range like any other company in the world. We have a full range of optical fiber cables, which meets any standards, global standards, where we can further address the market.
Slow, we'll build this up. OPGW, my colleague, Surya Shoban, spoke about that. We started that business in 2017. Along with OPGW, we have ADSS cable. We'll address the power line industry fully on end-to-end basis as a telecom solution. Tower and IoT connectivity solutions, which is a new, which we are starting this year. This is a hybrid products which we are bringing to the market to address the tower and IoT needs. The strength of APAR, I think APAR will be one of the few companies in the world to have these kind of products, who has a strength of power as well as, OFC, optical fiber. That brings a different set of products which we have launched in the market this year, and which will bring a different revenue for us.
Enterprise and DC solutions, we had few products, power products, like Shashi mentioned earlier, and we have added the full range of LAN and the fiber solutions towards the DC solutions. That brings us to a full end-to-end solution for the data centers and the IoT applications into the world. We are adding another division of rolling out building these networks within the telecom solutions. Since there is an investment across India, by private telcos to build these networks or by the government of India, like I said, BharatNet, which the government of India has announced, we are launching this vertical as well, which will be up and running in 2025 for us, to deliver that. I'll talk a little bit more about that.
In telecom, which has become a part of, integral part of every industry, pure telecom will play in, which is, operators and the data centers. Railways, we have a huge play. Investment has been shared by my team earlier. Similar investment, I won't say similar investment in terms of value, but similar kilometers will be required for the telecom products in that space as well. Defense, we are getting very aggressive on defense, because defense is investing to create a digital wall against the borders, to protect the country from China and Pakistan, primarily. There's a huge set of telecom spend happening in that space. Power energy, we've spoken. Industrial applications, IoT is moving way, way, I'll say, ahead of telecom curve. I think, the solutions required there will be much, much larger than what we are in.
As a strategy, we follow a purely, purely customer-centric strategy. My Chairman spoke about, initially, that we believe in growth, continuous growth, which is like global. Growth will, for us, on optical fiber field will come going global in this space. We have been more of India-centric. We are growing this business to global markets. We have created a KAM structure for the global markets, have identified the markets globally, roughly 20 markets we are going to address. When I say 20 markets, it's 20 countries out of the seven continents. We have created the structures around that. We have identified the partners in those markets. We are moving ahead in that direction. We have increased the focus on our global customer approvals as well, and the qualifications in the region. Certain UL approvals we have.
We have added for the CPR approvals, UL approvals, respective to the markets. That's where we are heading in. Next two-three months, we'll be fully ready to launch ourself fully in the global markets, capable to deliver a much, much larger volume out there. There's an equal exercise to do positioning of APAR in those global markets. Primary focus of APAR will remain India, Europe, and Middle East, Africa, from a telecom perspective. The second piece we talked about, premiumization or customer retention, that's what comes from our value creation initiative, where we are producing the innovative and customized solutions to stay relevant and command a premium from our customers. Not only premium, we retain those customers for a longer period of time. Design knowledge, led discussions are happening.
We have purely gone from a product sale to a solution sales with our customers, where the design discussions, technology discussions, happens with them, and we are creating those stickiness with the customer. We are arranging a local availability of the products in those different markets. That's where, like, Shashi talked about distributor model. We'll create a global distributor model for telecom business across global markets, and that's the way we'll lead those 20 markets as we move forward. This is not going to happen until, unless, we augment our internal capability. Third strategic priority for the telecom business is augmenting the whole team and the process to address these global markets. That's a continuous process. Last four months, we have invested in hiring more people, and next six months, we are doing the same.
There's a strategic partnership with the fiber suppliers to provide it globally, the products which we have initiated, and definitely end-to-end service capability we are building as an organization. Moving forward, just to give you a glimpse, what we have done in last 6 months in this space. One piece, which I said, is a growth, where we have the customers globally, but we didn't have the products, so we created the new products and launched to the new markets. New products to us, not to the market, but launched in a newer markets, global markets. We developed micro cables, we developed micro module cables, we developed fire-resistant cables, and these products get into the global market for us. We already started executing the orders in the global markets in this space. This will allow us to capture European market and African markets.
It's a large set of market which opens up with these set of products. The second set, which we created, is new to the market and new to us, which is like hybrid cables. That's where APAR strengths comes in. No other manufacturer in India, I'll say, has this kind of capability which we have built in. That it has got a copper, and it has got a fiber in a single cable, which provides you a lot of benefits as a customer, because it's a purely customer-centric approach. He doesn't have to install multiple times. It will be faster for him to deploy, it will be easier for him to deploy, and definitely, it will be cheaper for him to deploy.
If I say ESG as a word, it will be greener for us to deploy, because the lesser plastic will be deployed in the environment. That's the kind of product we are entering in, and that's the kind of products we have launched into the market. Another thing where we went in and we realized, like as I said earlier, we entered into a technology-based discussions with the customers. We realized the pain of the customer lies in actually executing the things in the field, and when it comes to a technical stuff, when it comes to a technology. Shashi mentioned about we are the largest leaders in the wind field, and we actually went into the wind fields and changed the designs of those products.
We saved the cost to them, we saved the time to install, and we saved the errors in the field, because now the product which goes from APAR is pre-connectorized, directly deployable in the field. Three sets, one is new to us, but old to the market. Second is new to us and new to the market. Third is absolutely providing a solution which delivers a different value to the customer. It's not only new to us or new to customer, it provides a lot of gain to the customer. This is just a reference products for all of you to see that where we are heading to and how we are heading into the market, and making a good headway into the markets. This is beyond products which I touched upon earlier, are the service business.
Telecom service has, three or four verticals, if I put it. One is a passive solutions, which is a foundation of a telecom network, typically a passive layer. On top of that, you always have an active layer, layer 2, layer 3, layer 4, layer 5. You get into a fifth layer of operation and maintenance of that layer. There is a layer of only pure management. Here we are talking about, as a telecom business, we plan to enter only in the first layer of telecom services, which is a passive solution build. There is a reason to it, that we have done some services in our, conductor business, and there is some, level of products we have in-house that allows us to be stronger in this space compared to any other entity.
Typically, there are three sets of- we have gone deeper into that space. We looked at the challenges in this space. There are multiple kind of networks which are evolving due to 5G, due to FTTx, due to rural networks, border networks, fiber to the home, these all passive networks, and it's not easy to operate because of multiple issues on the ground. There is the execution variability, which comes in. Each soil is different. When you operate in Maharashtra, it is different than what the way you operate in Gujarat or the way you operate in Himachal Pradesh. To get the, all the product from a single source, there are multiple products acquired. There's very few entities who can do that.
APAR is becoming that entity eventually, to address these challenges of reliability, visibility of the network, the integrated approach, which is required for such network, even the predictable CapEx for that network, because operators are very clear, the revenues are tight, and we want a very predictable CapEx around it, and then definitely sustainability of delivery on time. These are the five levers, which are typical challenges in these kind of networks, and APAR is gearing up with the tools, trackers, technology, products, service models. We're getting this ready, and this whole vertical will be up and running, you can say, another three to four months kind of time frame.
I'll say for next financial year, you will see the revenue in this vertical as well, and it will definitely be faster than the market, and it will create an impact into the market. Telecom business is primarily the products. We are growing multi-folds, and we are adding a service vertical to do these services end-to-end. Thank you.
I'll take you through a brief of our financial overview of the business verticals. Let me begin by, by presenting this slide that actually talks about who are our customers. These are the people to whom we actually sell, and these are data from the 12-month consolidated financials for FY 2023. Close to about half of our customers are from export market. About 16%, we sell to industries corporate. That includes cosmetic industries, pharma industries, rubber, plastics, and lubricants. Then there are specific industry groups like rail, defense, shipping, mining, and telecom that we sell about 8%-9%. There are OEMs that we sell about 6.5% of our total turnover.
Then there are transmission companies, both EPC and utility transmission companies, to whom about 5% + 7%, 12% of our products goes there. Renewables is about 3%. There's a lot of renewables that also goes on the export that you see on the top, 50% turnover. These are the renewables that is part of the domestic business that goes. The state electricity boards, utility companies in India, we sell about 1.6% of the consolidated turnover. Then there are others and EPC companies that about 0.5% and 3%.
These are the customers who are actually servicing, and this mix has changed so that in terms of our exposure to some of the state-owned electricity boards has gradually come down over the last several years. In terms of our quality of receivables, from where the customer mix is there, out of 100, if you have to put a number, close to about half is secured under various means that we operate upon different terms of credit and payment terms. 50% is secured under various means. About 20% are customers from government transmission and sector-specific companies that we talked about, rail, defense, and various other industries that was there in the earlier presentation. These are pure government and sector-specific companies, about 20 %-odd.
The rest, about 28%-30% is, is unsecured, of which, if you see, about 65% are entities where Apar has business relationship of over three years. We know the customers very well, and we've been dealing with them in terms of the credentials. That's the quality of the receivables. This is based on FY 2023 closing data. I would also like to take you through three specific risk management slides, which are very critical for our kind of industry and the products that, that we serve. The first and the most important is on the commodity risk, where our conductor business and cable business are- is actually involved, basically in terms of aluminum and copper.
Because these prices of these metals are so fluctuating, we, we actually maintain a 100% metal hedge book for our aluminum and copper. There are different price contracts that we enter into with customers. Some are fixed price contracts, some are variable price contracts. Based on the terms and condition of each contract, we maintain a 100% metal hedging. This is a very important aspect of this business, where our back-end team has been working to ensure that there are no contracts where the metal hedging is exposed. What this also means is that typically you don't find any inventory gains in the aluminum, the conductor and cable business, because we run a complete 100% metal hedging.
There is no metal variation exposure to the company because of this. For non-eligible major materials and services like freight, et cetera, we ensure that the duration of the contract is very less. We don't quote a very long-term contracts or price formula with them, so that the margins are pretty much under, under the, within the threshold brand. Also, we try to include a lot of price variability clause for long duration contracts, so that the price variation automatically takes care in the cost and pricing formula. The second risk management we do is on currency risks. Because of the spread of our business and the export and import that we have, we have natural hedges within each divisions.
We also do synergies across the divisions, wherein there are surplus exports or imports in one division gets offset against another division. Wherever there are non-dollar denominated currency, we also do the cross-currency hedge, so this also forms an integral part of the risk management framework. The third important risk relevant to the audience is on the customer risks. A lot of credit evaluation actually happens before we accept an order from, from the customers. A lot of financial background checks, a lot of KYC checks actually happens here. We do have an internal risk committee who reviews medium-term and long-term contracts, these are part and parcel of the order acceptance process. Besides this, we do have insurance, channel financing, factoring to improve liquidity and mitigate credit risk.
These are the three big risk management framework that we APAR from some of the other operational risk management, but I thought these things are very important to for the company like us and in terms of industry and the customers that we serve. I would like to take you through the P&L metrics and the balance sheet metrics for the consolidated division of APAR, as well as the individual divisions. Let me first start with the consolidated P&L metrics. In terms of last five years' performance, we have been growing from about INR 8,000 crore in FY 2019 to about INR 14,300 crore in FY 2023. Our EBITDA has been increasing year-on-year basis. We stand at about INR 1,300 crore of EBITDA post Forex in FY 2023.
Margins has grown because of the various reasons that we talked about in terms of our spread of our products, in terms of premiumization that has happened in last year. EBITDA margin is about 9%. Our PAT margin is about 4.5%. EPS has grown from about INR 36 per share in FY 2019 to about INR 167 per share in FY 2023. Our return on equity has been steadily about 11%-15% from FY 2019-2022, has gone up sharply in FY 2023 to about 32.3%. This is a very important metric that we focus within the company. Similar trend you see in ROC going up from 15% in FY 2019 to about 37.5% in FY 2023.
In terms of balance sheet metric, our working capital has increased in line with the increase in the business. We stand about INR 1,500 crores of working capital. We have a fixed asset or net block of about INR 1,000 crores odd , and the capital employed in the business is about INR 2,500 crores. In terms of number of days, if you see, we've been consistently maintaining it in the range of 30-35 days across all the divisions across the years as well. That's a number that we have been working very closely and minutely to ensure that our working capital is within that acceptable limits. CapEx has been fairly consistent in the last five years.
We have been investing more and more to build capacity ahead of the demand, and we've been consistently spending the CapEx over the last five years. Debt equity ratio has been low. We work on a very low debt equity ratio. It's been consistently in the range of 0.2x, 0.17x, and has come down as low as 0.14x in FY 2023. This is on the consolidated cash flows. Again, here you see the FY 2023 numbers are very high because of the profitability being high. As you see, this, the investment in working capital has been increasing. The momentum in working capital has consistently been increasing. That's also in line with the business requirements. We see an increase in cash flow.
I think the last, I think it's an increase in cash flow instead of the decrease in cash. I think the brackets are, are a typo over there. Very briefly, in terms of conductor, the big story is on this premiumization of this portfolio as well as exports that's, that's driving growth. We have the volume numbers you see on the bottom left side of the chart. One question that typically keeps on coming is that the volume growth is about 182,000, has come down to 160,000 the last five years. The, the main reason is that with premiumization happening in this portfolio, and also because of change in the product mix, the quantum of metric ton that is needed per kilometer has actually come down.
That is the reason that you see that the volume is almost flat or slightly lower. What has happened is that the quality of the product is actually improved, and therefore, you see the EBITDA per metric ton is actually going up. If you see the premium share on the second slide has been gradually increasing from FY 2019 to FY 2023. That's, that's the reason of the volume not have growth not happening, but if you see the per unit profitability is increasing. The domestic export ratio has changed considerably. We were about 39% exports in FY 2019, as recent to about half of the Conductor Division in FY 2023.
Strategically, we have been positioning the premium products largely around India and Asian markets, and the non-premium products has been there in the export market. This is the EBITDA trend. Clearly, you see the premiumization and the exports, actually playing in, in FY 2023, as you've seen in the business presentation as well. In terms of oil, also, if you see in terms of volume growth, it was about 430,000 KL in FY 2019, and about 486,000 in 2023. Year also post FY 2019, the strategically the business has actually reduced volumes to customers where we felt that the credit, could be an issue.
Therefore, we were actually- we had to reduce the volumes in FY 2020 and 2021 to get it to, to improve the quality of the customers, and therefore, you see there's a drop in the volume. Like the same story about conductors, here also the quality of the customers has actually improved even in the oil business, and has been steadily increasing from FY 2021 onwards. Our export mix in oil has also increased from 33% to 45% over the last five years. EBITDA had a very strong EBITDA in FY 2021 and 2022 due to favorable oil prices, and FY 2023 is about INR 4,800 per KL. It's, it's more representative of a long-term average EBITDA that, that we see.
Similarly, PAT trend has also moved a high in FY 2021 and 2022, it's been about INR 85 crore in FY 2023. Cable, in terms of cable, the story is on the strategic expansion into export market, as we saw in Shashi's presentation. It's gone up from 10% in FY 2019 to as high as 50% in FY 2023. You see the, you know, the sales going up and the export mix also going up because of that. During FY 2023, we were the number one exporter of cable and wires from India. On the EBITDA trend, you see that the margin profile is gone, also reached double-digit, which was also there in pre-COVID times. But in FY 2020 to 2022, 2021 and 2022, the number was low.
With, with the products and better margins and product mix, we've gone back to the double-digit margin over there. That was in some, a very brief profile about, about APAR on a consolidated basis, as well as the division things. Thank you.
Yeah, good afternoon. I'm Suyash Saraogi. In addition to the designation that is mentioned here, I'm also the Chief Sustainability Officer for this company. In companies, you know, where excellence in sustainability parameters is critical to getting business from customers and to be an integral part of the global supply chain, it is important that strategy is embedded in the way we work to remain sustainable. These are the stakeholder demands on APAR. Our customers, they want eco-friendly products, they want lower embedded carbon, they want transparency, and they want ethical practices. Our regulators, they want compliance, they want to limit this GHG emissions, they want to improve the water consumption so that they, they don't give the consent to operate otherwise. They want circular economy, they want the EPR, that is Extended Producer Responsibility.
Employees, they want the inclusive work environment, work-life balance, wants to work with companies which is an ESG leader. Suppliers and partners, we expect them to transition to renewable energy. We want them to adopt to energy efficient practices so that the costs go down. Shareholders, they want long-term value creation, they want financial disclosure, climate risk management, emission reduction targets, and shareholder engagement. Local communities, they want local economic development, that is business for them. They want water security, that we can't take too much water out of the area, and they want employment for the local youths. When we look at ESG, we have to look at all these stakeholders. Now, based on that, we are working on all fronts, where we want to be transitioned to renewable energy, and I'll touch upon them in later slides.
The climate risk management, water security, and employment, we need to reduce our water consumption. We want low carbon products for customers, we want an inclusive work environment and work-life balance for our employees to attract and retain the best talent. How do we start when we look at sustainability? We have a board of directors. The board of directors is basically having oversight on all the ESG initiatives. Every board meeting, these topics are discussed, debated. We have a sustainability steering committee, which consists of leaders from the manufacturing and from the business divisions.
We meet regularly, where decisions are, where progress is updated, where decisions are taken, where there is, where there is, some approvals to be taken, as well as the most important thing, silos are broken, and there is transparency across all the three businesses about what's going on, what we need to do, sharing of best practices. Then we have sustainability champions. There are 17 of them embedded in the factories, in the plants. Where they work together, they talk to the reporting managers, they identify projects with their colleagues, they get the approvals from the reporting managers, they help in the execution and update us on the progress. What we try to do is, we try to make it absolutely inclusive, spreading across all the company. There are 17 UN SDGs, that is UN Sustainable Development Goals.
As APAR, we are aligned to eight of them, and these are marked in green, which is basically good health and well-being, decent work for economic growth, industry, innovation and infrastructure, sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, climate action, peace, justice, and strong institutions, and partnerships for the goals. These are the eight SDGs. Whatever we do, we align to these, and that is inherent in our strategy, in our operations, and the way in our future plans. This is a busy slide. I'll just quickly go through it. Carbon footprint is basically the emission of GHG gases, which is carbon dioxide, actually. We measure everything in terms of carbon dioxide equivalent. APAR, in its operational boundary, that means all the plants, the warehouses, the offices.
Last year, in the year 2022, 2023, we emitted 105,000 tons of carbon. Now, there are two parts. There is something called Scope 1 and Scope 2. Scope 1 is the fuel that we consume, the diesel, the furnace oil, the LPG, PNG, CNG, refrigerants. That's what we use. That was Scope 1. Scope 2 is the electricity that we take from the grid. In India, what happens is that since most of the electricity is produced by coal, there's an emission factor of 0.715. That means that for every megawatt hour of electricity that we take from the grid, there is a 715 kilograms of carbon emitted, which we account for it as part of Scope 2.
You can see that our Scope 2 emissions are much higher because there's a lot of electrification within our company. The conductor business, of course, is the biggest user, user of energy. This is what the numbers are. We look at the-- I'll just go through how we are working. If you look at the first column, it's the oil business. The oil business, the emission went down from 6,860 tons to 3,197 tons in three years. The production went up from 384,000 kiloliters to 468,000 kiloliters. The intensity per kiloliter, intensity of carbon emitted per kiloliter, went down from 0.018 to 0.007. That's the key metric for us, because our production is going up.
We need to ensure that the energy intensity and the carbon intensity of our production goes down, which, of course, is very good for the balance sheet also. We look at the cable business. The cable business went up, the emission went up from 29,000 tons to 35,000 tons, but what was accompanied by an increased production from 55,000 tons to 81,000 tons. Therefore, the intensity went down from 0.527 to 0.439. In the conductor business. The conductor business, the production went up, the emission went up from 56,000 tons to 65,000 tons. The production went up to, from 222,000 tons to 270,000 tons.
You might wonder that you were shown a presentation just before, where they said that our production in conductor was 160,000 tons, and I, here I'm showing is 270,000. It is because there's an alloy rod. There's a wire rod that we make, conductor rod. That rod is double counted. Why we need to double count is to show the, because sometimes we buy these rods, sometimes we manufacture them, sometimes we do both. We need to show the, to show the comparison, we need to do this. Of course, the intensity has gone down. This is what we are trying to do. Basically, we are working very hard to reduce the energy intensity. We've been continuously working.
We work, we focus on electrification, we are trying to look at renewable energy, and, and therefore, we have been able to do this. This is an effort which is there, all-encompassing across the company. Now, how do we do that? You know, we have a very scientific approach. What we do is, we got energy audits done by reputed companies like DESL, that is Veolia and TERI. We got it done in our two plants in Silvassa, which are the biggest plants, that is in Rakholi and Athola. We understood, and they identified about 62 projects, which will save about 7,000 tons of carbon. Remember, 7,000 tons of carbon over 100,000 tons is 7%. It's, it's very material. And therefore, we have started implementing them. 7% have already been implemented.
The balance will get implemented within this year. What happens is, we save 7,000 tons, we save INR 5 crores of OpEx every year, and we have a payback of less than two years. What's good for the environment is good for our business. We are doing, we have just, we have just completed our energy audit at Khattalwada, which is our biggest plant, in, for cables. As we speak, the projects are being compiled, the paybacks are being calculated, and we should be ready with it in the first week of September. Of course, we'll be put up to the, to the management for approvals, and then we will start work on that.
It's all very scientific, and what happens with this is, that the plants, the colleagues in the plants get very enthused by it. There's actually a very palpable sense of enthusiasm, and it fosters inclusivity, and it fosters, of course, effectiveness. I mentioned about renewable energy. We've just commissioned our wind solar hybrid of 3.3 MW electric, and wind and 2.8 MW solar for Gujarat. It's going to generate 15 million kWh in a year, and we have about 5.13 MW peak of solar already rooftop solar already installed. We are working. Every year, we are improving our renewable energy posture, and that, of course, is zero carbon, and it saves cost.
For example, in case of the wind solar hybrid, we save INR 3 per kWh from the grid electricity. This is the status. As we started this year, we were 4% renewable. We already are at 18% renewable, with the commissioning of wind solar hybrid and another 1.2 MW of Jharsuguda solar rooftop. We are working on another turbine, so we should get commission in the first quarter of next year, so we'll reach 30% renewable. Assuming electricity remains constant. To the extent that electricity demand goes up, it will reduce correspondingly. This is our thing. Now we are working on this, basically. We are also trying to now do interstate renewable. We are working on that.
Hopefully, we should get something planned by next quarter, and then we can implement it in the year 2024, 2025. I think this was touched upon earlier. We basically, as for customer requirement, low carbon products are very critical. The HT ACCC conductor and the POWEROIL NE Premium things were all mentioned earlier. We are focused on this is just an example. Ultimately, everything has to go towards low carbon. Water footprint. Water footprint is very critical because it directly impacts the communities where we are. It also is very important from a consent to operate at all our plants. Of course, it's-- We had a 328,000 kiloliter footprint. That is a footprint we took from water we took from natural resources.
We have an intensity target of reducing it by 12% this year. By the way, I forgot, for carbon, we have an intensity target of 10% this year, so we'll have a further reduction of 10% this year. For water, we have taken a 12% target this year, and every year, we will come up with a fresh target. The idea is that relentlessly, we will keep on reducing it. We are doing all these things. In Khattalwada, we've implemented a state-of-the-art water harvesting system. The process is mentioned in this chart, but intrinsically, what it means is that we do proper understanding of what the aquifers are under the, under the factory, under the ground. We know what is their water carrying capacity, and we then do rainwater harvesting to ensure that we utilize that capacity.
At the same time, we cannot afford any chance of any contamination in the groundwater. We expect that the year 2024, 2025, we will make Khattalwada water neutral. That'll be the first plant, and then other plants will follow. This is our target. In terms of employee, in terms of social, employee engagement is the most important thing because it is reflects the degree to which employees are emotionally connected and committed to their APAR and, and to the role, and therefore, it improves their productivity and efficiency. You can look at the numbers. We are an outstanding 92% survey response rate. 81% of the employees in APAR are engaged, which is absolutely amazing.
If you compare it with the industry averages, which is there at the bottom right of the slide, you can understand the impact it has had. This is all because of the psychological safety that is there in the company. I experienced it. I've been here now for three years, and the way people connect to the greater objectives. For corporate governance, the board is committed in managing APAR in a transparent manner, with the objective of maximizing long-term shareholder value. Basically, all these things you know. The composition of the board reflects the industry experience that APAR requires, and it has an appropriate complement of qualified and independent directors. Shareholder relations and interests are looked after by the share transfer and shareholder grievance cum shareholder, stakeholders relationship committee.
The number of shareholders increased from 35,000 to 72,000. You know, there's an increased interest in APAR, and shareholder grievances have been very little, and complaints, and they've been addressed promptly. This is what I want to also mention, that CRISIL, you know, in May 2022, they released a report where they ranked 586 of the top Indian companies. That included Infosys, all the Tata companies, everybody. APAR got a consolidated score of 59, and we came 148 among the 586 companies. Believe me, since then, we've come such a long way that if this year they do it, we'll be, we'll be in the top 100 for sure, maybe top 75. In the industrial segment, we came third out of the 48 companies, 42 companies.
This is based on information they got from the public domain. There was no reference to us. We did not submit anything to them. What it means, if you look at it from environment, we got a score of 56. Social were a bit lower than average, but then we've really improved all our. It was more on the policies and the disclosures, which we fixed it. Well, internally, everything was good. It was just the information was not available to them. Governance, there was never a problem anyway. This is what it is. I think, I hope they have another survey, and I hope that, and I'm sure that we will do very well. What are the key milestones we have done? We have a TCFD report.
We have the ESG rating as done by CRISIL, I mentioned earlier. DNV, we get all our carbon. The carbon footprint that I mentioned is all audited by DNV, which is an international body. CDP is a Carbon Disclosure Project, which is a global platform, where we submit our response to their questionnaire. That is available to overseas investors and to overseas companies who might want to know about our parts. They get an absolutely tabulated comparative, how we stand versus our peers. We submit that. Last year, we got a rating of B. The first time we submitted our, we did our submission, and we got B, which was actually very good. We thought we, you know. Normally, companies get a DD for Delhi. We got B B for Bombay.
EcoVadis is another platform, global platform, run out of Europe, where, again, a lot of social parameters. We submit our response to them, so that our investors can and customers can take data from there. Wind solar hybrid, I touched upon. Now, this year, we have started doing our Scope 3. Scope 3 is the bigger one. It's where we start engaging with our value chain partners. We look at the embedded carbon of the products that we buy. Now, that's the big thing which we are working on. We already had webinars with our suppliers. We've taken 244 suppliers through our sustainability journey and got them to sign our supplier code of conduct and given them questionnaires. We've had 8 webinars and 244 suppliers. This year we will continue with the work.
Then, of course, we have environment product footprint. What happens is that certain companies in Europe, they want us to look at the embedded carbon from cradle to gate, to gate, from the time the original aluminum was mined. We've done for four products, is there. Everything is there on our website. We'll sum it up. We are measuring and disclosing and reducing our carbon emissions, water footprint, and reducing our waste reduction. The big thrust on renewable energy, we have partnered with leaders. All the compliance requirements, including voluntary disclosure to CDP, EcoVadis, BRSR are up to date. CRISIL, I mentioned. We got a rating of B in CDP, we, I mentioned. Customers are demanding, and we are doing it.
Therefore, I would like to end by saying that please look at our sustainability report, or look at the sustainability section of our website. Everything is there, our reports, TCFD, all the products, EPDs, our policies, everything is there in the sustainability section of the website. Please go through it. I'll end by saying that revenue growth is good, profitable growth is better. Profitable growth that advances ESG priorities is best. Thank you.
Good after- Good afternoon, everyone. I'll begin with the questions, set of questions we received on the Q&A link. The first set of questions we received from Atul Bhole from DSP Mutual Fund. If that is okay. Thank you, sir. The first set of questions we received from Atul Bhole from DSP Mutual Fund. The, for the Cable Division , what's APAR market share in special covered wires supplied to transformer, transformer manufacturers? The second question is for the Conductor Division , details on the end-to-end turnkey projects, the nature of contracts, bidding, or capabilities, customers, margins, and working capital requirements, ad as a percentage of total revenue.
The last question for the lubricants segment, how APAR's lubricants are different from Servo or Castrol in B2B or B2C, in the backdrop of conductors or cables business, where company has created edge with product innovation and market shares in the B2B and B2C segments?
Yeah, I'll answer, regarding this, copper CTC conductors. Actually, when we started in this segment, actually, a lot of government approvals and individual, you know, customer approvals are needed. You know, first, few years it has gone by for, you know, getting the, you know, major approvals. Now, last year and this year, and what's our production, you know, capacities of now sales have pick up. We are hoping that, you know, next, this year and next year, our market share is increasing. Right now, it is 20%. We are aiming to go to 30%-35%.
Thank you, sir.
Number of turnkey projects that we have done are over 100 so far, already commissioned.
We just ask to repeat the questions.
Sure.
Pradeep, all the mics has been given?
Yeah, there's there. I'll start with the question which you-
We need one more mic on that side, Ankit. Okay. I think, Pradeep, if you can just repeat the next question.
Okay. On the conductor, I think sir has already answered, but I'll still repeat. The details on the end-to-end turnkey projects, the nature of contracts, bidding or capabilities, customers margins, and working capital requirements, and as a percentage of total revenue.
Okay. I think in terms of percentage of total revenue, the turnkey EPC work that we do is about 10%-12% of total conductor business. Yes, this part of the business is working capital heavy because it is project-based. At the same time, we also get a milestone-based payment, so that actually eases the working capital number there. In some cases, there are also retention money that we get the payments after the close and after the successful completion of the project.
Nature of contracts or products that we are dealing with are HTLS and OPGW. The bidding is based on pre-qualification requirements, past supplies successfully done, and also technical specifications. There are certain quality standards which have to be met. Even if there is a party which bids for a job, but they are not able to be eligible for that technically, then they will be disqualified. The customers are now not only the utilities like Power Grid and the private utilities who are taking the BOOT projects, but also the EPC players who are taking on various jobs for the solar and wind projects, and they have to connect to the grid. These are some of the customer profile we have.
Thank you, sir. We have another question. How's APAR's lubricants are different from Servo or Castrol in the B2B or B2C, in the backdrop of conductors or cables, businesses where the company has got created, edge in with the product, in the innovation and the market shares in the B2B and the B2C?
On the, on the lubricant side of the business, some of the key initiatives that we have done to differentiate ourselves from some of the other leading players in the market, is specifically to work on solutions which are customer-centric and customer-specific. Just to give you a, a simple example, is on the agriculture side of the business, which is the tractor business that we are talking about, where we've taken leadership positions. We've actually moved away from standardization of, you know, products, meeting global standards, API standards, or any of the other European standards, to start tailor-making products very specific to the equipment and very specific to the OEMs. As a result, it's very difficult to benchmark your solution, your products, with competition products.
Thereby, you bring in uniqueness into your product, and the stickability of that business over a long-term period is substantially very high. The reason why we took our exposures on agricultural sector, is simply because the lube consumption for every 100 liters of fuel that you burn, is probably one of the highest in the lubricant industry. A consumption pattern of lubricants to the overall fuel index is substantially higher in agriculture. With these unique products, specifically developed for a certain OEM or a certain application, the longevity of the business is substantially higher. If you look at some of our OEM clientele that we have developed, we've been working with them from 2009 in terms of Sonalika. Escorts, we've been working with them for first fill and aftermarket from 2014.
We started to work with TAFE, Eicher from as early as 2018 now, and we continue to run all these three OEMs with a very advanced rate of share of business, and the businesses have aged for almost about 12, 13 years on a consistent basis, year-on-year, and we've been growing our share of business. That's what we've done on the, on the lubricant side of the business. Coming back very specifically to the industrial products that you're talking about, the focus is on demonstrating superiority at the user place. The focus, that's why, is more on cutting fluids, where you can differentiate your products by the application.
We start to work on tool life, productivity, the number of operations that you do per tool, those kind of matrices that we develop, thereby, you differentiate yourself from the cost reduction that you are delivering to consumers, and that, again, you consistently hold on to your share of business. Ultimately, at the end of the day, this whole process is to look at customers very specifically and drive value back into them. Value not on a per unit basis, but on an overall consumption basis on a year. If you're so long as you are extending your product life, giving in better productivity, you still are able to get away by charging a premium over competition. At the end of the day, through productivity, you're able to deliver back value. That's the strategy we follow in lubricants, both on industrial as well as in automotive.
In automotive, we work on fuel efficiency as a key criteria for differentiating ourselves from, from all the competition products. To give you indications on the question of shares that you've asked for, we clearly are far more better positioned on industrial. We almost work at almost close to about 6%-7% market share is what I can talk on industrial side of the business. The automotive side is relatively lower if you compensate for what we have in positions of OEM. In a cumulative basis, we look at a 3% market share in the overall product category that we do, both B2C plus B2B put together, but our B2B shares are substantially, close to almost about 1.5x that of the overall market share that you're looking at.
Thank you. Thank you very much, sir. We have the next set of questions from Sachin Relekar from Bandhan AMC. This is for the Conductor Division . What is the growth outlook for conductors in exports and domestic? What is the order book to execution cycle? How much is the current order book? The next question, also provide some information about the working capital and sustainable profitability in the above. While you have given details about your EBITDA to ton guidance, the opportunity as well on premiumization, where we are targeting, which should also result in an improvement in spreads. Can you share your thoughts on the same?
Our order book, as it stands as of first quarter end, is about INR 5,300 crore. About 45% continues to be in the premium portfolio that, that we've been talking about. And close to 50% is on the exports export front. Sorry, Pradeep, what's the first question?
What is the growth outlook for conductors?
Growth outlook. Growth outlook, we are looking about 10% volume growth happening. Last year, for 2023, we grew about 50%. On top of that, we expect the growth to be in the range of 10%, with premiumization and exports continuing in the years to come.
In terms of the order book, execution cycle, typically, most of the contracts are supply contracts in our Conductor Division , and depending on the product, some of them are like cash and carry type products, some of them are with the LCs also. As we dispatch, we get the, you know, proceeds for that. There are some projects which are on a turnkey basis, as Mr. Ramesh Iyer mentioned. Those have the milestones, and typically it is about six months project time frame that we get. In this project work, we also have to sometimes get the outage, the downtime, so that we can replace the old conductor with the new one. In the case of OPGW, we don't have to wait for the outage, because we have the expertise to do the lifeline, OPGW installation.
Thank you, sir. So we have a follow-up question from Sachin Relekar on the cables division. Cables business, as of now, have adequate capacity, but our growth aspiration seems conservative given the market share, which is quite low. So again, the second thing, which I think this is more of a view, maybe, Sachin, if you wanted to elaborate a little bit more on that. And the E-Beam technology, does it provide a competitive edge in terms of pricing advantage versus peers? So maybe the first question, I'll repeat. Sachin is asking about, that our growth aspirations seem to be very conservative on the Cable Division .
Yeah. Good afternoon, Sachin. We had planned initially that we would be growing at a rate around 25% this financial year, because we had invested for a new plant last year. Fortunately for us, we have commissioned that plant ahead of our plan, and having three, four months gone into putting up the plant. I mentioned earlier, the capacity utilization is 88%, and if in case I have to look at a growth, I need to have capacity. Some of the machines have got commissioned, some of the machines are yet to be commissioned. Considering the capacity, we are envisaging a growth of about 25%. Even though, if you look at the market share, what we have, against the total turnover of about INR 65,000 crore, we are at about 5%. That also keeping in mind, keeping in mind the bottom line, the way market is behaving, the way competitors are behaving, we are a bit conservative as far as numbers are concerned.
Our primary focus going forward this year would be B2C products. We are putting in a lot of money in promoting the unique technology, what we have, of E-Beam. You also asked about the price difference. Yes, this is a unique product. The compounds are different. These are slightly expensive compound as compared to the normal PVC, and plus the entire process, the cost is involved. Currently, this product is about 7% to 7.5% more than the normal PVC products what we have. We are also pushing with the MEP consultants, if you can look at using one size lower, because this carries 50% more current carrying. It's a win-win situation for them and even for us also.
Thank you so much. We have the next set of questions from Parin Gala, from Sage One Investments. In reconducting space, this is for the Conductor Division . In the reconducting space, what is the opportunity size that has come up? To your best knowledge, how much of new transmission circuit kilometers can be laid in the next five years?
We are estimating about INR 2,000 crore is the current market. It is growing at a rate of 30%+ in the markets in India itself. Similarly, is the situation abroad. Some of the countries, as it was explained in the earlier presentation by Mr. Surya Babu, the U.S. market and some other markets are still on the conventional conductors, but they are slightly different, different from what we have been making earlier in India. These engineers in those countries also are getting the meetings and presentations to move to the premiumized type products and see the value proposition. If that phenomena happens, then it can totally change the entire world market towards the premium, like how it has happened in this part of the world also.
In which case, the growth can be significant, much higher also for these premiumized products, which we are trying to push for. As he explained in his presentation, for the new conventional conductor, new lines, transmission lines, it is about, I think you have mentioned-
It, yeah, mainly the augmentation in India, we have a plan for 18,000 circuit kilometers. That will convert into huge, like, you know, almost 100,000 to 120,000 metric tons requirement. For next, you know, five years, it's clear visibility is there in India, definitely. In export market as well, like I told you, in U.S., you know, still they are 90% of the, you know, the projects coming up with the conventional conductor, but very rapidly changing in that part of the world as well. In Europe, I told you, in Southern American countries, it is picking up, you know, very fast because it has got a premiumization and very value proposition is there. Other part of the world, it is catching very fast.
I let me give you a totally different perspective on this, right? I know it's always nice to put numbers in buckets, which quarter, this quarter, this year, et cetera. I'll give you a number which will just blow your mind. You know, one of the, the number one think tank, as far as business is concerned with research and et cetera, is McKinsey. McKinsey has issued a report, you know, on energy consumption and energy consumption patterns. Today, if you see the electrical consumption out of total energy is running at around 20%. That research report indicates that in 2050, that intensity will go from 20% to 40%.
There is, A, a growth in energy consumption also happening as population and, you know, all the different, you know, GDPs are growing, et cetera, et cetera. The mix is going to, they're predicting it to change from 20% to 40%. It gives you an idea in terms of where, you know, this whole market is going to move. What are we trying to do over here? It's very difficult to predict exactly how much growth is going to happen in which segment. The, the strategy, and I think what we've tried to convey to all of you all today, is that there are multiple levers of growth. You know, if you see, fundamentally, we look at APAR as a full four-wheel drive company. You saw the four wheels. They are all capable of independently growing.
There is no taking away, there is no cannibalization or a zero-sum game. If the cable business grows, you know, it doesn't take away anything from the telecom business. If the telecom and cable grows, it takes away nothing from the conductor business. If all of these things grow, the transformer oil and the lubricant business also runs on its own. The way we've structured ourselves for the next 10 years, is to make sure that each of these businesses is extremely well manned and self-contained, and you provide resources to the-- Obviously, there is a proper screening criteria to do resource allocation. If the resources are provided to each of these, they can all independently grow. There is no cannibalization of growth happening from one to the other.
Secondly, as you can see, there are synergies in place. Like, for example, I'll give you, I think one of the things that Sundar had mentioned in his, you know, tunnel boring machines. India has the largest population of tunnel boring machines running today for two reasons. One is we have metro rails coming up and all. Like, for example, you take the entire Mumbai Metro, it's most of it is at 100 feet below sea level. We had multiple tunnel boring machines which were running. Now, this tunnel boring machine requires a very specialized lubricant because you're basically drilling through monolithic rock. In this case, it is 100 feet below the bed because Mumbai is a lot of reclaimed land is there, so you can't go at any other height. Now, each of these tunnel boring machines has to be remotely powered. It's moving, it's drilling, right?
The end, which is providing power to it, requires a very specialized cable that's running over a very rough surface, which it has just drilled. APAR is the only company that has now developed. Our lubricant guys developed the first relationship with the tunnel boring champs to supply the lubricant. Now we've designed a specific cable that provides the power and data to the tunnel boring machines. It's a consumable. It's such a rough terrain. Every few months, it needs to be changed. On one hand, you've got these businesses which are running independently and pursuing opportunities that each business has, both domestically and globally.
On the other hand, we are trying to provide a platform where there is continuous, you know, exchange that happens between sales teams, business leaders, et cetera, to see how we can synergize products. Same thing in the data centers. You know, you've got a, that Microsoft data center that Shashi spoke about, each data center, about INR 15 crore -INR 20 crore of cables that go in, electrical cables. On top of that, there are evacuation of data from the data center and data coming into the data center. You've got then fiber optic lines, which are there, finally needs to connect to an OPGW circuit. You know, there are a lot of these things which, a lot of synergies which are in place.
Whereas you can't put numbers in here exactly, you know, how these things are going to pan out, like, you can't say when COVID was going to end, or you couldn't say how many people are getting infected, but you know the trend which was happening. The whole idea that we have as a business is to make sure that we have-- That's why, you know, providing customer solutions are very, very important, because the closer you are to the customer, the easier it is for you to pick up the trend before, competition, for putting products in there, which can actually make a meaningful difference in terms of-- you know, their performance. Like he said, for example, Sundar mentioned about tool life.
You can either sell the lubricant by the liter, or you can sell a lubricant which the customer starts evaluating in terms of how many tools they can produce using that sump. The equation becomes a bit different, even if your product is a bit costlier. Finally, they're looking at how many tools have been engineered, right? Using that lubricant. As a company, we are trying to move, you know, more and more into that direction. Just I mean, that number is a staggering number, 20%-40%. How it's going to grow, you know, you see all the products which are out there, which are all going to be an integral part of this journey of 20%-40%. I hope that gives some perspective.
Thank you so much.
I wanted to add one important point regarding reconductoring business. If you see existing transmission line, these are our old, age-old transmission lines, has gotten a transmission losses of 30%, to the tune of 30%, whereas at global level, the transmission losses are at 17%. Now, Indian government has taken, you know, target to reduce from 30% to 20% by 2030. Currently, this year, we are at 27.5% of transmission losses. That means if we generate a 100 units at the generation, only, you know, 70 units is reaching to the customer. That means 30% of the, you know, power generated is getting wasted in the transmission lines. If you see 2022, our the consumption of electricity in India is 1,486 billion units.
That means, you know, 30% of 1,486 billion is huge, billions of INR, actually. If you can reduce 1% or 2%, you know, it's a huge saving. That is the reason why Indian government has got a, you know, plan, you know, to modernize the existing transmission lines. That is the reason why reconductoring business is going to grow, not only in India, across the world, because all old transmission lines are inefficient lines. Because of that, a lot of transmission losses are happening.
Thank you so much. Thank you, Kushal, by amazing perspective. We have the next set of questions from Maulik Patel from Equirus Securities . This is for the Oil Division and for the Cable. For the Oil, what has been the volume growth for different subsegments, transformer, white oil, industrial oil, within the PSO segment? For the Cable Division , the question is: In the cable, what kind of margins would APAR likely be likely to achieve in the next three-four years from the current 11%?
Let me answer the first one. In terms of the segments which are there within the Oil Division , so, you know, the transformer oil business, you know, we've stated in all our earnings calls, et cetera, you know, we can see clearly about a 7%, you know, anywhere in the 7%-8% kind of growth. It was sub 5%, but because of all this getting added all over the world, you know, that percentage is clearly growing. Similarly, in some of the other segments, you take white oil, et cetera, you know, we have approvals all over the place, so the volume is really not the criteria. What we've been using to gauge our business is, what is the margin that you're making? What is the risk that you're taking?
What is the collection cycle that you have, you know, available? Our focus has been more not in terms of volume on white oils and all these segments, but more in terms of the application. Like Rishabh spoke about, for example, hot melt adhesives. We worked on it for 10 years. We are only one of three companies now in the world. We've just got approvals in the last two years from Bostik, Henkel, Avery Dennison, H. B. Fuller. You know, these are all world players, you know, and this handful of companies that actually control this hot melt adhesives business. Now we started in India, now we started expanding. We are supplying them in Europe, Egypt, Mexico, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, you know? The idea is really that, you know, the volume for us is actually not the, the game.
We can, you know, just buy market share, we can grow volumes if we want. The whole focus has to be really in this business, what we are focused on is to see how we can increase the applications, which can get us a better, better retention, you know, in terms of margin. We focus on these niche places. You know, with GST coming into India, the lower-end products have become too competitive because a lot of traders come in and just offer their products, and some of the manufacturers have improved their capability to be able to handle more flexible, you know, incoming specs. India is a jugaad country, to reduce costs, people are ready to do all kinds of things.
That's one of the reasons why we are focusing on the overseas business, as well as applications which require much more understanding of oil chemistry and application chemistry. In terms of the cable side, I think whatever you said applies to cable, too.
So I don't think I have got much to add on it. We are focusing on some niche products where the margins would be better, and we are looking at providing solutions to the customers. We are not into this price war games currently. Hopefully, I think we will be where we are at this point of time. As regards margins are concerned, slightly, slight improvements would be there. Thanks.
Thank you so much, sir. We have the next set of questions from Riya Mehta, from Aequitas . This is for the Conductor Division and the Cable. For the conductor, in the conductors, where is the competition increasing from? Will we have to undercut or increasing our market share in the U.S.? For the cables, what kind of increase in marketing budgets are we looking for? Since we are about to get approval for medium-range voltage cables, what kind of market are we seeing for this?
On the conductor side, prior to, you know, the TBCB product, which was earlier being used ACSR, there used to be about 33 players who were approved by the Power Grid, who was the main TBCB party. Now, with the change in the product, which is the AL59, there are about four players. There may be one or two more on the anvil, but again, they are much smaller players. In terms of the U.S. and other markets, China used to be well-entrenched in the U.S. market, and we used to knock on the doors, and we used to get very small market share earlier on.
Since, you know, the earlier president and now continued with the current president of the U.S., the policies have remained same, where they have increased the duties very high for the Chinese product. That's how they got us in very quickly. We were already in that market, but we were small, in a small way. Once this whole situation changed, then as we talked about this China Plus One , that gave us a big jump in the conductor business for certain markets. In other markets where we were having a disadvantage versus China, because, for example, in Australia, there used to be a 4% duty on Indian product like other parts of the world, but China and Australia had a FTA, and then subsequently, India also got an FTA done with Australia. We are now at the equal basis.
Generally, in the export markets, we are able to outsell the Chinese on the conductor side.
Can you just repeat the question? Sorry. For cables.
Yeah, for the cable, what kind of increase of marketing budgets are we looking at for? Since we are about to get approval for the medium range voltage cables, what kind of market are we seeing for this?
See, as the marketing spend was concerned, we were to spend some amount last financial year, but we couldn't do it because our products were not well-placed. We were there only in two states, currently, we are present in 19 states. As I said, first, ATL advertisement will start in Asia Cup. Subsequently, we're going to be present in the news medium, and probably we will do this Women's Premier League. If you, if I look at the total budget of my complete cable business, it could be somewhere around 1.5%-2%, if I am looking at only my B2C product or LDC product, it could be around 6%-7%.
Second question regarding this medium voltage cables are concerned as far as U.S., is that it may take some time, even though I would be having the UL approval in two months time. Getting our products certified at the customer's level, their visit to the plant, it's not that, okay, once I have an UL approval, my order flow would be there. It may take some time. Maybe in Q4 onwards, we would expect that kind of business. In U.S. alone, there are more than 3,000+ utilities who would necessarily be needing these medium voltage cables. There is a clear-cut business plan, there's a clear-cut strategy, how we're going to attack this market as far as U.S. is concerned. I am sure next year onwards, we will have a major share, which I could speak about.
Currently, it's hardly anything.
Thank you very much, sir. We have the next set of questions from Amit Anwani, for from Prabhudas Lilladher . This is for the Conductor Division. I'm limiting the questions to three per person, and we'll see if we have some more time.
I suggest you just ask one at a time. We just answer that. We go to the next.
Sure. Okay, this is one question only for the Conductor Division , if you would be comfortable in. What are the premium products contribution opportunity for the Conductor Division for the next five years in the domestic as well as the international market? That's one. How would you see the contribution coming from the U.S., Europe market and the opportunity for us in the next five years? How is the addressable market for the domestic re-conductoring market, and are we looking for re-conductoring opportunities in the other emerging markets?
Yeah, I think question by question.
Okay, I know. You just mentioned.
What are the premium products contribution opportunity in the next 5 years, in the conductor for domestic and the international markets?
As we explained earlier, about 45% of the order book is the premium products currently, and also in the rest of the markets, rest of the percentage, we have a fair amount, which is in the export markets, which are the premium markets, even if they are not premium products.
Yes, as Surya Babu was saying, that as there's a lot more from the globalization point of view, still it's more the non-premium products, but as you see premium products going there, the market is, will be increasing. We don't have a number as such exactly as of now, but we are able to visualize the trend over the next 5-10 years going forward.
Would you like to share some details on the contribution coming from U.S., European market as an opportunity prospect for the next five years, in particular, for the Conductor Division?
For the U.S. and European, and I would club also some of the other markets like Australia and Latin America, because these are like almost one segment in that sense, there is a fair amount of growth there. There was last year a frenzy because of the supply-demand problem and, you know, supply chain disruption, so they were hoarding a lot of material. Now they are de-stocking all that. Over a period of time, we think about 40% of our business may come from these different countries.
One last question: How much is the addressable TAM, which is total addressable market, the size for the domestic reconductoring market, and are we looking for reconductoring opportunities in the other emerging markets?
Outside India, we are doing mostly the sales, that means outside the subcontinent, rather than taking on the EPC re-conducting job as a whole, currently. Over a period of time, we will also, once our confidence level builds up, that we can take on work outside India, because there it needs a whole different ecosystem to manage, so we'll take it up in gradually. Right now, we are not doing that.
Thank you so much, sir. We have the next set of questions from Gaurav from Axis Mutual Fund. This is for all the divisions related to exports. Can you please share your outlook on the growth in the export market? I think if that is repeated, but, Can you please share your outlook for the growth in the export markets, and how the sales evolved for the last five years, the last few years? Is there any possibility of competition heating up, pushing down the margins in exports, in particular, in a year or two?
You know, some of the key drivers, which are there, we put up six key drivers, which are there. Some of them, like renewable energy, you know, the transportation networks changing, you know, these are themes which are-- Infrastructure growth in India is more than in most other countries. This renewable energy theme is actually going to be a universal theme, you know? A lot of stuff will happen there around cable conductor and even transformer oil, as we showed, you know, in that, in that value chain. Our expectation is that our, you know, export will always remain a significant portion of our business. I mentioned earlier also in some of the earnings calls, it's easier for us to start selling premium products in the Indian market, because you have to do a full solution sale.
There's a lot of time invested in working with, you know, specifiers, utilities, the regulators, all that, you know, to move from one format to another format. Also, we are able to prove it here because we do the job end to end. There's a lot of skepticism around it, "Can, can you really deliver these savings? Can you really do all this?" Unless and until you prove pilots over here and prove that, you know, whatever you had committed in the beginning, when you got the order, you're able to actually deliver that at the end. These cycles take some amount of time. We've not ventured into that overseas yet, because you want to build enough internal expertise and credibility, you know, to be able to go overseas on that.
The opportunities in India on the, you know, standard products, the export markets are definitely more premium because of the way in which the evaluation is done. I think we mentioned that a few times, you know, from, from that perspective. Otherwise, the basic transformer oil products, the conductor products, and cable products, the market overseas is just, it's significantly bigger than the Indian market. That opportunity is very much there, and, you know, we'll continue to focus on it and grow, grow that segment.
Thank you so much, sir. We have the next set of questions from Namisha, from Emkay Investment Managers, and this is for the Telecom Division . What is the current revenue base, and what kind of revenue potential are we looking at, and what will be the margins in this business, and what are the investments we are making for this business, specifically?
As far as current revenue is concerned from this business, it's around INR 200 crore, what we do in this business. The plans for us to next three years, is to ramp up this business from INR 500 crore-INR 1,000 crore. That's, that's where we see this business going. As far as margins are concerned, it's, you can say telecom is a little higher segment, and it's a solution-based business where we are entering in. The approach is more of a customized and innovative solutions towards the market. We see our EBITDA margins in the range of 20%-30%, 23%-25% range. That's where we see our EBITDA margins in that business.
Thank you so much, sir. We have the next set of questions from Rishabh Kothari from Investec. This is for the Cable Division . Where would you like to position yourself in terms of pricing, as compared to peers such as Polycab and Havells in foray in retail wires and cables? What are the three key entry barriers for exports of wires and cables from India to the U.S. and the other markets?
See, as far as pricing is concerned, yes, it's very competitive. As mentioned earlier, we are focusing on the niche product and special product, where we can create a place for ourselves and where the margins are better. Earlier, when we started the business, yes, we are in the price war. Currently, we want to move out of that and provide solutions to the customer. Many a times, we are not there in the rat race as far as the price is concerned, but depending upon the customer, depending upon the strategy, depending upon the long-term goal, probably we may be very selective in being competitive as far as those markets are concerned. As regards international business is concerned, as--
What was the second question again?
Yeah, what are the three entry barriers for exports of wires?
See, entry barrier, if you look at earlier, it used to be China, who were very competitive. The last few years, that competition has reduced. If at all anybody wants to export to countries, like U.S., you need to have an U.L. approval that is mandatory, and at the same time, there will be an approval process of the end customers, too. If you look at Europe-- Germany would have its own approval process, France would have its own approval process. Getting approvals at, in Europe also is mandatory. Like, you need to have your product certification from KEMA, you need to have your product certification for cables as per VDE specification, you need to have product certification as per EN specification. This is not that easy for anyone to get in, so that is, is the most important barrier to enter into that market.
When I spoke about Australia, fire survival cables, 1,050 degrees Centigrade, it is not everybody's cup of tea to manufacture and get approval from an Australian body. These are the one of the most, I think, say, barrier for getting into the export market, and we are very much into it at this point of time.
I can just add to what Shashi has said. You know, I think, partly that question was on how are we pricing our wires compared to Polycab.
Polycab, the other ones. Havells.
Havells, et cetera. We are in the similar sort of price bracket, depending on how strong a company is in a particular market, you know, it's not that Polycab has a uniform price across the country. They have different price points depending upon how strong they are in an entrenched market. We are not higher than them, we are somewhere in that 5% bracket.
Right.
The product that we offer is significantly superior. Our whole idea here is to try to do demos, get as far as possible to decision makers and electricians and electrical contractors who can, you know, swing the customer through a proper discussion and a demo. What we find is that, like, in Kerala, we've had tremendous success because it's a, it's a bungalow market. You see, most of the houses are standalone. When someone is building their own house or their own bungalow, it's a very large portion of their income, so they get much more involved in everything that's purchased there. The moment they see the demo, if you see the demo when you are renovating your house, I can guarantee you, you'll buy an APAR Anushakti wire over any other wire, because it's so apparent. It's such a simple demo.
Two wires running in parallel, crank up the current, you can see when the insulation melts off on one, and when it starts smoking, and what happens to the other wire. It's as simple as that. I think what we are trying to do here is to just popularize this in terms of, you know, its brand, safety, et cetera, et cetera. We are finding that, you know, as long as we price it within the same bracket as these guys, there's still enough margin for us to, to take home and reinvest in, you know, growing the brand. As far as entry barriers for export, we are talking about house wires to be exported. Very difficult to export it to America or any of these countries, because of it's a relatively simpler product to make.
It's just a 1 single insulation on top of a stranded conductor or a solid conductor, as the case may be. When you have the freight and you have all the distribution costs and all that. Our strategy has been to get into more complex products when you have to export, because we have a lot of machinery and a lot of flexibility to customize. Wherever your polymer is a bit different, like what Shashi mentioned here, 1050 degrees, there are hardly any few companies that actually get into that high temperature, you know, sort of polymers. There are some of the products which we supply which are quite complex. Girish mentioned about hybrid products. You need to actually produce copper and fiber optic in the same plant to be able to produce a hybrid product.
There aren't too many people who do that necessarily in the world. There are some huge fiber players, and there are some huge copper players. Our Khattalwada plant happens to be one where you do both in the same plant. You know, when you get into complexity of manufacture in places like the U.S., Europe, et cetera, these are a little bit more manually oriented, you know? Because you just don't necessarily have dedicated equipment. You have to run it on multiple equipments to be able to achieve these things. That's where it's easier for you if you have the technology, the design, et cetera, you can come up with a good cost arbitrage or a good cost benefit.
Thank you so much, sir.
I hope that answers, you know.
Yes. With the time constraint, I'll just take two sets of questions. One set of questions from Himesh Satra, from Purnartha PMS . This is for the Conductor Division . Given that we are running at a peak capacity in the conductors, and the new capacity will take another 12-18 months to come, what is our outlook for conductors beyond FY 2024?
It's not going to take so long for us to expand, and we have already ordered out new equipment, so we'll be in the process to cater to that increased demand. What we are doing now is also adding on a few more sites, greenfield sites, where we'll be putting up new equipments and also having the additional facility to add on more machines as the demand grows gradually for us. This has been our strategy.
Thank you so much, sir.
A lot of investment, see, already INR 400 crore- odd , as Ramesh mentioned. About INR 400 crore- odd is the CapEx that has been planned. That CapEx cycle is already underway. As Chaitanya mentioned, you know, various purchase orders have been placed, et cetera, because the delivery time for equipments has increased.
Compared to, you know, what it was in 2019, et cetera. This entire INR 400 crore CapEx will be completed in the next year, 2024. You'll have all of it going in. It consists also of, for the cable side, a 42 acre greenfield property, which is between Umbergaon and Khattalwada. It's in that same vicinity, but it's a greenfield site because our existing sites are pretty much getting maxed out on the cable side. On the conductor side, they've expanded by buying property, you know, in that whole Silvassa area. Some of it is actually bought in auctions, you know, from banks and stuff, where you already have the land and a building shed in place. These expansions will keep on coming in, you know, as the requirement is there.
A significant portion of the cable conductor ex, expansion or CapEx is also going into rod making and alloy making capability, because that's the key to be able to meet, you know, all these special requirements which are there. The moment you get into high temperature, high efficiency, it's all alloy-based. Moment you get into the U.S. market, 8000 series. You know, there are various alloy requirements which are there, and by expanding at the back, at the back end, by increasing our capability of producing rods, and it can cater to both the conductor and the cable business. The conductor business supplies the rods to both the businesses.
Thank you.
In fact, one of the areas where, you know, somebody asked, what is the competitive advantage, you know, that we have? There are two things in there, right? One is the conductor and the other. What is the cable at the end of the day? There's a conductor in the middle, there's an insulation outside and in various way, shapes, and forms. The advantage which we have is that, in conductor making, the metal, the metallurgy is a very important aspect. If you're moment you move away from a pure aluminum.
Pure aluminum, you can specify what quality you want from Hindalco, or from NALCO, or from Vedanta, or any of these guys, and just get it. Moment you get into alloying, it means you have to mix something in there, and then it requires a metal treatment to take place for it to get homogenized and aligned, you know? Then you've got different requirements of drawing, stranding, you know, et cetera. At the end of all those processes, you need to meet certain criteria, like a breaking load, a certain amount of conductivity, you know, those sort of things.
The big advantage which we have is that since we do our own alloy manufacturing, right, we don't look at it as just somebody who's just selling an alloy, meeting certain specifications. We blow back from what those characteristics are for a client, and then work our process back to tweak the method in which we do the alloying.
There's a big difference, you know? We don't. There is no handover from APAR that happens. You buy a pure aluminum, and you deliver a finished cable, versus if you were to buy a rod from Hindalco or from anybody else, they just make the rod and hand it over. Somebody else has to then work with it. In our case, there is no handover process. It actually runs within the company, end to end. We have capability of doing compounding. We have major compounding facilities for especially the Elasto business, is driven with compounding.
In the case of UL, again, we have compounding capability. The compounds are far more complex than the same cable being sold in India. I must say that the system that is followed, many of you are familiar with the pharmaceutical industry. There you get an FDA approval, and the process that runs is that FDA comes in and does a plant inspection, but besides that, they just pull out a product from anywhere, you know, any shelf and get it tested. And if you fail, then your license is on suspension. The same thing is there in the UL, you know, in the sense that they can draw every meter of your product has your UL number printed on it.
They know exactly, and it's a unique number, so they know exactly whose approval they have given. They just draw the product random. You have no idea where they're drawing it. It can get tested, and if it fails, then your license is suspended for that particular product.
Thank you so much, sir. We have the last set of questions from Rahul Modi from Nippon Mutual Fund. After this question, I will ask you to have the closing remarks. This question, we can take up the other questions offline. This is for the Conductor and the Cable Division both. What is the target capacity expansion across conductors and cables? Are we operating more than 80% in both? The kind of revenue growth in the next three-four years in both the segments, and CapEx in rupee terms, in the capacity as well as location for the growth, for both the divisions?
Yeah, I think so. We have been guiding this INR 400 crore of CapEx. The way we plan our CapEx is that we invest ahead of time to take care of the requirements. Right now, as you also saw in the presentation, we are about 85%-90% capacity utilization, and we are almost there for, for this part of the year. CapEx is something that happens continuously. Even if you had seen it in my slide, over the last five years, we have been investing in CapEx ahead of the time to look for the capacity for the next financial year. You know, that's, that's what we feel on, on the CapEx. I hope I have answered the question.
Yes, for both the divisions.
Yes, this is true for all the divisions.
Expansions are mostly happening in and around the existing places only, as opposed to totally new sites or different states.
The greenfield is close.
Yeah, conductor is mostly in Silvassa, and the cable is mostly in South Gujarat.
Concluding remarks from Kushal?
Well, first of all, thank you very much for taking out the time. I know these are part of trading hours, there's always that. You know, these are volatile times. Every day, something, a rupee is going up, something or the other is happening. I just wanted to mention that, you know, a couple of cultural things, because I think what differentiates one company from another is really the culture of a company. The culture of a company is really the collective behavior of its business leaders. You know, technology can be copied, products can be copied, et cetera, but culture is very difficult to copy. So we've tried to build a culture in here where you are very close to the customer, you're very focused on delivering meaningful solutions.
We don't want to have fancy presentations which don't, which don't tell you what is being done. Because walking the talk, you know, it's, you know, the more transparency you have in terms of your strategy and where you're going, is playing a very important role. We try to maximize a very simple equation, which is better, faster, cheaper, and now greener. Whatever we do, fundamentally, you want to focus on making sure that you make the best quality product, it's delivered to the customer on time, and, you have the right cost position, and there's a difference between being the cheapest and being competitive. We, you know, target being competitive.
What Suyash mentioned here, you know, when he presented, is that this whole ESG thing, it's taking off first in overseas markets, where today, you know, in some of the tenders which you fill in, they want this full breakup, and they want to know where you're getting it from. That's why this whole scientific process, trying to have a business leader who's at the top level, you know, driving this whole initiative, it is a much bigger deal than, you know, we ever thought. We got into this journey in 2021, base-- 2020, actually, saying that, "Hey, you know, one fine day, this is going to become important because we've just been pulling out from the Earth and, and from nature too much more than we should.
You know, it's not sustainable." We started this journey and, you know, we got all these champions and things like that. Then, lo and behold, from 21 onwards, companies and utilities started asking us for all this data. Fortunately, because we had started early on the journey, because we had made very significant commitments to pursue this, it has actually helped us in growing in the overseas markets. You know, here, Shashi mentioned names of some big utilities where we are the only Indian player that's been selected. The first screener that they had was on ESG. They didn't want to see what capacity you have, what-- If you didn't have something that was moving in that direction, you weren't called for the RFQ. Some of these RFQs are really big. I mean, they're running into thousands of crores.
Not that we will get all of that business, we may get a small portion of it, but this is giving an indication of the way in which the world is moving. I think the biggest advantage that, or, or the biggest competitive advantage which we're trying to build in the company is first to make sure that all the businesses are addressing growing markets, number one. Number two is that we do have a competitive advantage in terms of servicing that market. Number three, if you are very close to your customers, these markets are all changing. You come early in the game in terms of understanding what are the products, what are the solutions that they're looking for.
Number four is, you know, optimizing that equation, because without optimizing the equation, nobody in this world is ready to pay you any premium, not for engineering products. It can only be linked into, you know, performance or the greenness, you know, criteria that it is covering or being met. Finally, as I said, you know, just to summarize that, you know, the quote that I picked up from the McKinsey study, as this world is going electric, the energy needs are going to be met through electricity. If you see the renewable energy which is there, the cost position is not a problem. The world has to work on a formula by which or a system by which it's available 24/7.
There's no problem in terms of the unit price of generation. Suyash mentioned in here, after paying all the government charges, wheeling charges, everything, we are locked in for this 3.3 MW and 1.8 MW, about over 5 MW of renewable energy for the next 25 years. It's fixed. It's irrespective of the inflation, right? It's-- Everything is fixed other than whatever taxes the government may charge, you know, for wheeling. Affordability is not an issue. That's already in place. The question here is: how are you going to deliver it 24/ 7? There's a whole lot of things happening in that area, which is going to make it more and more sustainable, you know, as, as the main source of, of power.
I think some of these projections which are there, even though the timelines get extended by a few years, because the numbers are very ambitious, whether it's India's number or it's the U.S. number or European number. I think Australia is one country that's probably going to hit those numbers, because they have really been investing more than any country that I have seen on a per capita basis. Even if it gets pushed out by a few years, all of this is going to happen, whether it is on the power side, on the transportation side, on the communication side, et cetera. You know, we see this long runway in there. There will be competitors that come in. The India, may, as all of you know, moment a market is there and somebody sees some margin, people jump into it.
We believe the easiest thing to do is to set up a factory. The more difficult thing is to start the factory, and the most difficult thing is to keep that factory running efficiently 10 years after it has started. I think that's about it. I don't know whether, Chaitanya, you would like to say anything, but, just thank you so much for, for being here, and even during lunch, you know, if you have any other questions or queries, we'll be around. Thank you so much.