Aspiring to quadruple its assets in consumer finance business to 8 billion dollars on the back of a booming retail and mortgage market, GE Money India said it would become the country's numero uno non-banking finance company by 2010.

GE Money India, a unit of the world's biggest diversified conglomerate GE, could receive fresh fund infusion of close to one billion dollars from its parent to achieve the target.

"From the point of non-banking finance company, our target is to be number one or two," GE Money (India region) President and CEO Vishal Pandit told PTI.

The asset size of the company's consumer finance business is worth about two billion dollars, which is expected to grow four-fold by 2010, he said.

GE Money worldwide has identified India as the "imagination breakthrough country" -- the country with the highest potential for growth. The Indian market, Pandit said, was on par with Eastern Europe in terms of potential for growth.

"Achieving this target would mean expanding our branch network from 162 now to about 500-600," Pandit said.

Asked about the funding requirement, he declined to quote any specific numbers, but said the ratio of equity infusion would be one-ninth of the asset value - which works out to a little less than a billion dollar.

Moving ahead, the company would exit the consumer durables finance through mom and pop stores while broadening the reach to high growth and high profitability areas of personal loans, cars, mortgages and private label credit cards programme.

Courtesy:Expressindia.com

Telephone instruments maker Bharti Teletech said its Ludhiana facility has achieved a production mark of 20 million telephones since its inception in 1987.

The facility has become India's first manufacturing unit to produce 20 million telephone instruments and has also surpassed Chinese benchmark on the productivity front by rolling out three million instruments last fiscal, Bharti said in a statement.

The company plans to achieve the production mark of 30 million instruments by 2010, it said.

The consignment carrying 20 millionth phone was flagged off by company's Vice-Chairman and Managing Director Rakesh Bharti Mittal.

"What started as a small manufacturing unit way back in the year 1987 has today become a world-class manufacturing center, surpassing even the Chinese benchmarks in productivity levels. A wide range of world-class products from Bharti Teletech have delighted customers in over thirty countries across five continents," Mittal said.

The company manufactures telephone instruments under Beetel and GE brands.

Bharti Teletech took as many as 16 years to roll out the first 10 million instruments while the remaining 10 million were produced in just four years, it said.

The company commands a domestic market share of about 60 per cent.

Courtesy:Expressindia.com