During the IMME 2016, EQUIPMENT INDIA interacted with exhibitors and visitors about the overall trend in the industry and the experience at the expo. Some key responses:

In India, largely the coal produced is consumed locally, and not exported. Coal India is not able to reach their target of coal production. For higher production and for meeting the target, they need good machines. So we expect more enquiries for equipment from Coal India and many private coal miners in the country. We expect a good growth prospect for Indian mining industry in the medium term. This year?s IMME seems to be less in number of exhibitors, may be because of the current industry scenario. People are still waiting for a turnaround in the industry.
Kiyoshi Mizuhara, Managing Director, Komatsu India Pvt Ltd

We always participate in IMME, which is the most important exhibition for mining products. This time the exhibition is a little smaller, however, they have done a good job. We have seen a lot of customer footfall so that it is a very good platform to connect with customers, showcase our technologies and products and get feedback from them on our activities. Overall this is a platform for us to interact with customers and get first-hand feedback from them on how we are peforming in the field and what we can do to become better and stronger.
Arvind K Garg, Executive Vice President & Head, Construction & Mining Machinery Business, Larsen & Toubro Ltd

We participate in every IMME. Normally we don?t have our own independent booths but we participate through our principals. We are more into equipment sales and services, as consulting company for equipment in end-user market. At this year?s IMME, I don?t see much crowd may be becase of the downturn now. But yes, the return of the cycle has started and hopefully the next IMME can be more aggressive and have more footfalls. The tempo of the equipment manufacturers is a bit low now, but everybody is gearing up in this downturn.
Ranjit Ravindran, Business Head - Mining Machinery, Mining & Construction Equipment Division, Voltas Ltd

We have chosen to participate in this exhibition with an aim of exhibiting our products and services. We manufacture hydraulic hose assemblies and fittings which are required for all heavy equipment and machinery. We suppply these products to OEMs and aftermarket. We have hoses ranging 0.25 inch to 4 inch dia.
BL Agarwala, Managing Director, Hydrokrimp

We are participating for the first time in IMME. The footfall of visitors is satisfactory. We offer various types of wire ropes for different equipment. There is an extensive use of wire ropes in mining industry. Mining industry is a major contributor to our business and we look forward that with this participation, we will have a much more exposure than we had in the past.
MS Arora, CEO, Bharat Wire Ropes Ltd

This time our focus is on ?Make in India? products and we have launched lighting tower, a Make in India product. Hopefully this can achieve a good market share in the coming years. Lighting towers have good demand in construction and mining sector. In this year?s IMME we want to show that Make in India products are also equally good and can be brought to the global standards. This year, mining sector is doing well and government is putting all efforts in further improving the scenario. We see this as a good platform to meet the customers of mining industry.
OP Bangur, Director, Dozco (India) Pvt Ltd

More number of German companies participated this time, almost 20 companies. In the current scenario, there are very few markets where mining sector is growning and India happens to be one of the few coutries where we see the growth in mining activities with the coal ministry?s plan to increase the coal output. So there is a great scope for the development of coal mining industry in India. Also there is a plan to increase steel production which requires more iron ore. Overall there is a scope and potential for Indian mining market. That is why we see a lot of foreign exhibitors and suppliers here looking at the potential of the Indian market. I?m sure the exhibition would be a good show. The German participants have interacted with Indian customers and other Indian suppliers. This helps them understand the market better and also appreciate the huge potential of the Indian market. Many of them are looking at the possibility of Indian partners. I am sure the German companies are quite happy as of now. Also there are a few German companies participated for the first time which is a good sign that they are also interested in Indian market. We are going to see more high capacity machines and more environment-friently technologies coming in. In many areas drilling and blasting is not possible due to habitation. So people are looking at new possibilities like surface miners where you don?t require drilling blasting.
Rajesh Nath, Managing Director, VDMA India Services Pvt Ltd

We are not displaying any of our machines this year like last time, but are focusing more on the value creation that has taken place with the innovations we have done in the past. We are also focusing on bolter miners, in which we are bringing in the bolting and cutting together that saves a lot of time and energy. About IMME, this is more of a networking platform. It is more towards interacting with people and making some best practices out of it. That is the kind of discussions and dialogues we look forward to in these types of platofmrs. Our major aims in this exhibition are building awareness about our products and brands. The leads generating in the exhibition help us in our marketing activities and building relations with our customers.
Subhasis Das, Vice President, Sandvik Mining and Rock Technology India

We regularly participate at exhibitions like IMME and it is our endeavour to be present in all exhibitions, conferences and forums associated with infrastructure development. Quippo is present in construction and mining equipment rental arena for more than a decade and our Group has strong presence in this sector for more than 25 years. We feel that rental and leasing will be need of the hour. Therefore our presence here is very important.

As the single-largest multi-brand rental player, we are strongly positioned in construction equipment rentals and would like to be prominently placed in the mining sector as well. IMME is a very important platform for us to connect with our manufacturers and customers. We are looking at mining as an aggressive avenue, going forward. On the mining industry scenario, we feel that with the government?s recent initiatives, the mining sector will only flourish in the coming years.?
HS Bhattacharjya, Managing Director, Quippo Construction Equipment Ltd

We are really happy on the outcome of this show. We have basically two targets participating in such an event: one is to support our licencee partner with their product launch, the Servo premium hydraulic fluid range. We are really honoured to support Indian Oil Corporation, the market leader in India for their Servo premium hydraulic lubricant launch. We are in touch with their customers for educating them on the benefits of Dynavis technology that is utilised by IOC in the Servo hydrualic lubricant range. This is a perfect combination for us. We are educating mining companies, construction companies and fleet owners the benefits of multigrade hydraulic fluid formulated with Dynavis technology to achieve fuel efficiency and higher productivity. This is working really well here as visitors are very open and engaged in discussions. All in all, I am really happy to be here.
Rolf Fianke, Global Marketing Manager, Dynavis Oil Additives, Evonik Industries

We participated in IMME with an expectation of meeting our suppliers, reinforcing our bonds and leveraging our relations with them for our new products, which we launched in the show. The footfall seems to be less compared to last time. I feel there was a slowdown in the coal mining activities last year.
Manoj Gyanani, Director, Trident International

We have showcased our latest steel products and solutions for mining industry applications. We have developed a new special abrasion resistant steel, Quard 400 and Quard 500 for mining applications. In the global market we are growing at a rate of 10 per cent year-on-year. However in Indian mining sector, currenlty the NLMK Steel division is very young and we have to develop the recognition of our products, which is our main purpose of being present here. We know that India is a special market, and we have a lot to offer to this market and do here. Looking at the current government?s efforts in improving the prospects of infrastructure and mining industries, we have a clear vision on our positive business in future. We participated in IMME Kolkata for the first time. This is a platform where we can reach the local mining market and the mining contractors here who are our end-customers.
Bernard Robins, Marketing Manager, NLMK Europe - Plate

Wo do oil analysis for various equipment in the construction and mining industry. Started two years ago, we are relatively new in the industry. We have participated at IMME for the first time and we find this is a good platform for us for branding and creating awareness among the people on oil analysis and our services we offer through our lab. Currently people know only the popular labs and oil sample testings are being done only in these labs. We wanted to highlight our testing lab facility and services we provide in oil sample testing. This is also a good platform to meet our prospective customers in the mining industry. We have received good number of visitors and overall it was encouraging.
Siddesh N Savant, Director - Business Development, Ultra Plus Lubes Pvt Ltd

At IMME, we have showcased our surface miners for mining industry. Right now the industry is moving towards mining without blasting and our products are a solution for blast-free mining. Our core strength is that our equipment are suitable even for harder strata of mines. We focus on blast-free mining which is an environment-friendly method of mining. Response from this year?s IMME has been good as we have been getting visitors from across the industry and PSUs like Coal India, and iron ore and limestone mining companies. We are really encouraged the responses which we are getting from these companies. We really see a bright future as the mining sector in India is on a turnaround.
T Ramesh, Country Head, Vermeer Asia Pacific Pte Ltd

This year the mood of customers is upbeat with a lot of positivity. The construction and mining industry is growing. We have a large number of prospective buyers and existing customers from across the country coming here. Especially people from Odisha, West Bengal and other north eastern region will be there. We try and show our presence to our prospective customers in each part of the country. So IMME is one good window for us to showcase ourselves to the customers of eastern part of the country. We always participate IMME in the east, Auto Expo in the north, Excon in south, thus argely covering the whole country. We expect a good footfall, good word of mouth, show of strength and good customer connect from this event.
R C Mangal, Sr. VP - Sales & Marketing, Truck and Bus Division, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd

It was quite interactive for us as we used to meet a lot of old friends who are also the exhibitors here. We try to understand from them what are their needs and how business is growing now. Also we met with a lot of customers who are small and big mining contractors. It was a good day for us so far, understanding the needs and how market is growing. We are trying to meet more people, establish more relationships, trying to make more awareness for us to see what are the new technologies available, which are the new companies coming to India, and what are their needs - whether they want to buy or sell, and depending on that we deliver our services. On the industry scenario, we still feel the market is slow and it is still not come to the level we were expecting to be.
Sameer Malhotra, CEO, Shriram Automall India Ltd