A known name in the global market for fuses for 85 years, Littelfuse, entered the semiconductor market in 1999 by acquiring Harris Semiconductor. Since then, its semiconductor business has grown to over US$ 130 million through both organic growth and acquisitions. On his second visit to India, Corey Deyalsingh, director, power control, semiconductor business unit, Littelfuse Inc., USA, spoke to Nitasha Chawla of Electronics Bazaar about India as a growing market for semiconductors and the company’s future plans in the country.
EB: Why is the Indian market important for you?
When I first visited India in July 2011, our semiconductor business was not so big here. Since then we have been making efforts to expand business in India with our existing customers and by trying to acquire new customers. We consider India as one of our shining star nations in terms of market potential. As a region for growth, India is our top priority. Hence, since the last two years, we have been focusing more on India, and accelerating our marketing activities by putting in more experts into the region. We have introduced TVS diodes and ESD protection diodes in our circuit protection portfolio and power control devices for the Indian market.
EB: What are your marketing strategies in India?
Littelfuse is considering opening an office in India as the business expands. As of now, our company representatives are located in different cities depending on the potential for our business. For instance, Pune is the hub for the automotive industry, so we have our representatives there. Also, our marketing team is in Delhi and NCR. We also operate across India through our national and global distributors like Millennium Semiconductors, Arrow Electronics, Rabyte Electronics, Future Electronics, etc. Our distributors know the pulse of the market and they are in contact with the customers. Our application engineers assist the distributors, and meet the customers to understand their requirements and design the product accordingly.
EB: What percentage of your business comes from India?
At present, around 2 per cent of our business comes from India. We would like to double this figure by 2018.
EB: What are the major sectors you cater to here?
We are present in the automotive, industrial and consumer electronics sectors, but we focus more on the industrial electronics and power sectors.
EB: Which are the verticals in which you see growth for yourself in the country?
Looking at the power situation in India and its growing solar energy market, we want to explore opportunities in this segment. We are already present in the power segment in a big way in many countries that use our solar fuses. On the semiconductor front, we are developing new products like IGBTs, specifically for solar inverters.
EB: Since the automotive industry registered very slow growth last year, did it affect your business?
Littelfuse has a small base in India and we did well last year in the global automotive market, as per our target. Therefore the sluggish market in India didn’t affect us.
EB: What is the purpose of your visit to India?
The main focus of my visit to India this time is to train our distributors, which is something we don’t do very often. This includes product training, applications training, giving them guidance on what markets and application segments to focus on and imparting knowledge about our semiconductor products. Basically, the idea is to capture the voice of the Indian customers and understand what they want. Since we have the expertise, we wanted to see in what way we can help our distributors and customers.
We are also pitching some of our new products like high-power semiconductors for industrial heating and lighting applications in the Indian market.
EB: What is the response you are getting in the Indian market?
We have received a good response so far. Most of the people don’t recognise us as a semiconductor brand but they are familiar with Teccor Electronics, a company we acquired in 2003. So, now our main aim is to promote Littelfuse as a semiconductor brand as well.
EB: Tell us about your alliance with your India channel partners?
Our channel partners have been our gateway to the customers in India. It is difficult for a new company in India to build a customer base, so they have helped us by introducing us to the customers and building relationships with them.
EB: How are your channel partners promoting your brand in India?
Our channel partners give us exposure in the Indian market by representing us in the exhibitions it participates, and through advertising in the print media.
EB: How do you plan to take forward your partnership with your channel partners?
We want to grow along with all our channel partners who have helped us in India. So far, we have promoted ourselves through our channel partners only and the results have been good. We would now want to focus more on training programmes for our distributors, like we did this time.
EB: Are you looking for more channel partners in India?
No, not in the near future.
