According to sources, the company also plans to establish a presence in south India by setting up a green-field project in Andhra Pradesh. The pre-project work for the green-field project is almost complete. The project cost will be around Rs 30 crore, for which land has already been purchased in the Godavari district in Andhra Pradesh. This plant will be manufacturing both wall and floor tiles. With this strategic move, the company is slated to capture a majority share of southern markets from the currently dominating Murudeshwar Ceramics Ltd.

At present, the company has three plants - one at Alibagh, one at Bharuch and the other in Karjat. The company is planning to raise the aggregate capacity to 10 million sq mt.

The company has set up a 2.5 million sq mt capacity plant to manufacture premium-end vitrified tiles at its Karjat plant. The new machinery installed here been supplied by Laeis Bucher of Germany, Konexindo from Singapore, Nassedi and Geetech from Italy. The 150 mt kiln used for firing the tiles is said to be one of the longest in the world.

The company's expansion project of 1.25 million sq mt per annum at its recently-acquired Bharuch plant in Gujarat is on the verge of starting operations. With the two additional capacities in place, the company's installed capacity for the wall, floor and vitrified tiles would exceed 10 million sq mt per annum. The expansion projects have been undertaken at a cost of Rs 85 crore and have been financed through internal accruals and debt.

The company became the first Indian firm to make overseas acquisitions in the ceramic tile industry when they acquired plants including Mon-Alc in Spain and Sanex in Romania. This will allow Sun Earth to leverage the technological expertise and access high realisation market of Europe and America.

The company aims to be the leader in not only wall and floor tiles, but also the vitrified tiles. The vitrified tiles market at four million sq mt is estimated at Rs 600 crore per annum. Sun Earth Ceramics expects to touch three million square metres by the end of 2001, and nearly 60 per cent of the business will be generated through the sale of vitrified tiles. The company expects the market share in wall tiles to increase from 18 per cent to 22 per cent, and to 16 per cent from 12 per cent in floor tiles by the end of this year.

The company has recorded more than 100 per cent growth in export in the year 1999-2000, by Rs 20 crore as against Rs 9 crore in the previous year.