Decoding the Future of Vertical Transportation in India

Your author looks at the factors for potential growth in the industry.

by Rajnikant Lad

All-around developments and government policies are going to boost the elevator and escalator business in coming years. It will not be a surprise to see around 20-25% annual growth in the next year. Companies have started gearing up their activities to grab this opportunity and have set their internal target at 25-30% higher than the previous year. 

The current financial year’s sales figures are yet to come, but there are good indications they will be considerably higher than the pre-COVID figures. There are visible reasons to believe there will be 20-25% growth in the elevator and escalator (E&E) business in the coming years. With a GDP growth of 6-7%, elevator industry growth of 20-25% seems realistic.

The present all-around growth of infrastructure, manufacturing industries and construction intelligent operations at minimum cost. To substantiate our prediction about the E&E industry growth in India, let us study and think about the government policies and plan for spending on development activities.

1. The government’s plan consists of: 

• Developing commercial and industrial corridors along the highway
• Creating smart cities 
• Providing E&E facilities at many railway stations all around the country: As per the report available, railways have installed 981 elevators and 1,090 escalators in the last five years alone.
• Enforcing a high court ruling to provide accessibility at foot over bridges and other public utilities to senior citizens and persons with disabilities. 

This is in addition to the regular residential and commercial construction activities in the country. 

2. Organizing important and big events like the G20 summit and other various international sports, conferences and summits to boost our industry. 

3. Deciding to define a lift’s life as 20 years, providing an additional driver for E&E modernization and new equipment sales. 

4. Recognizing the recent advisory by the Maharashtra Government to have fire evacuation lifts for buildings above 23 floors, which also promises to create additional demand for elevators.

5. Realizing that growth in the elevator export business is also adding to the Indian elevator industry’s overall growth. 

6. Welcoming all-around developments and government policies that will boost E&E spare part/component export business in the coming years. 

The spares/components business is gearing up in metro cities. In Mumbai, it has developed to such an extent that you can have the component supplier within your reach. With the easy availability of spares for all elevator brands, the freelancing business is going to increase exponentially. 

All the market surveys show elevator business growth as 10-12% every year. But these projections are all based on the construction industry’s available data. The effects of the elevator life cycle decision of 20 years and the introduction of Fire Evacuation Lift rules have yet to be seen in the market, as these are not aggressively implemented. This will provide an additional boost of a minimum of 10% over and above the regular growth.

With the increase in the spending capacity of the people, users are becoming more and more demanding. They need comfort, speed and intelligent operations at a minimum cost. Smart/intelligent elevators, which include green energy, remote monitoring, predictive maintenance, real-time performance information, touchless system, access control, biometrics system, destination dispatch control and an in-built breakdown record system with not much additional cost, will have dominance in the market. 

New developments in the green energy concept, digitalization, remote monitoring and predictive maintenance are key market trendsetters.