Leading the race is Gautier India Ltd, a furniture manufacturing company set up by Zuari Industries Ltd, belonging to the KK Birla Group, in collaboration with Groupe Seribo of France. The company, which is the first to set up shop in the country, expects to net a turnover of Rs 100-crore by next year, said Gautier India Ltd managing director KK Gupta.

Chennai-based Gautier India Ltd plans a major marketing blitz in the country shortly to promote its range of products. In the current fiscal, the company is targeting a turnover of Rs 45 crore.

The focus of the company would be the middle and upper middle segment of the market, Gupta said. The company plans to expand its network to the western and northern parts of the country soon. ``We have already established ourselves in major South India centres. Our next target is western India, to befollowed by the North,'' Gupta said.

The company currently retails its products through show- rooms owned by it and through a select dealer network. At present the company has 30 retail networks all over South India. In Kerala alone the company has two fully-owned showrooms in Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam, besides dealer networks in Kottayam and Kozhikode. The company plans to open three more outlets in the State--Kollam, Thrissur and Palakkad--shortly.

Gautier products include home and office furniture to designer-made computer furniture and entertainment furniture for television and music systems. The bedroom range includes beds, bed-side tables, wardrobes, dressing tables, chest of drawers and mirrors. Desks, drawers and filing cabinets dominate the office range.

Gautier, which has set up a manufacturing centre at Kakkalur near Chennai at an estimated investment of $ 15 million, has an installed capacity of 16,000 units per year. The ready-to-assemble furniture is made out of plain particle board(PPB) and medium density fibre board (MDF) laminated with paper foil.

``We are using raw materials of the highest international standard. The PPB and MDF are imported from Europe and paperfoil from Japan while the hardware is from Europe and Far Eastern countries,'' Gupta said.

The company follows the designs, processes and specifications as per the parent company Gautier, he added. The company which started production in 1998 had already exported 35 per cent of its products to France to retail through leading networks, he said.