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Informist, Friday, Nov. 7, 2025

By Shreya Shetty and Sunil Raghu

MUMBAI – 

ABB India Ltd. expects growth in business and the market to return once the sluggish phase of the growth cycle is over, a top official said. For a few quarters now, the market has been undergoing sluggishness in both capex and project expansion, the company said, adding that it views this sluggishness as a correction after the strong growth seen in the post-COVID-19 pandemic years.

"Whether it takes one quarter, two quarters, our perspective is this is going to come back...the growth is going to come back... The moment the order intake and the order formation takes place, it will directly reflect in our books in the orders, revenues as well as in the capacity utilisation, which directly impacts the profitability as well," the official said in a post-earnings analyst conference call.

The company expects good growth in the renewables sector, specifically in battery energy storage system, or energy storage solutions. "When I look at the way renewable sector is behaving what we see is a good expansion in terms of the renewable market," another official said.

The company also sees similar positive growth in the rail, green hydrogen, and data centre sectors. In rail, there have been many encouraging government investments, as well as expansion of metro rail across various cities in India, which is likely to contribute to the company's base order "going forward," the official said. In the data centre segment, there is sluggish movement in the hyperscale data centre market, which is likely to continue, depending largely on the development of colocation data centres. 

The investment cycle has begun for the cement, steel, oil, and gas sectors, the official said. "...so cement we are seeing a bit of a revival and upturn in the investment, same goes for steel industry, and also we do see a good pipeline in the oil and gas sector. So, yes, the markets will be a bit dynamic, nice pressures will be there, but the good part is that demand will also be sustained in the coming quarters," he said. 

Extension of the deadline to implement the government's quality control order norms is likely to increase imports of materials by the company, which will in turn increase its base input cost, it said. Quality control norms are the defined standards, guidelines, and processes used to ensure that a product or service is consistently free of defects and meets specific criteria. The government brought in these norms to encourage domestic production.

However, amid a high number of orders being placed to meet compliance norms and getting certificates amid a few testing labs and available slots with the government, the Centre has been extending the deadline for implementation of these norms, the official explained. "... And therefore, in the interim, we have no other option but to import materials to serve our commercial customers... What used to be locally developed and which we are using as a cheaper cost, which we now need to import for the base cost itself increases," he said.

The company's engineered to order business has been robust, and revenue from the sector is expected to continue seeing an uptick, it said. The company expects similar growth in both its electric and motion businesses.

On the impact of Chinese imports on the industry and the company, the official said it was unclear what the thawing of tentions between India and China would mean for them. ".. it is unclear what will be the impact of Chinese imports in the country. So, I think all our customers who are in these process industry segments, they will be also evaluating very closely how this will play out, whether the Chinese imports will flow into the market in an uncontrolled way, whether that will impact their price, their realisation in the market," the official said.  End