India's Polyhose showing strong growth in North America

Polyhose India Pvt. Ltd. has come a long way from humble beginnings.

Its staff numbered just seven when Y.J. Shabbir started the firm in 1996. It made thermoplastic hose with just one extruder and two braiding machines, and posted modest first-year sales of $130,000, according to Ali Asger, Shabbir's nephew, who joined six months after the founding and now is a Polyhose director.

Fast forward 27 years, and the Chennai-based hose and accessories manufacturer — living up to its "Flexible Solutions Globally" tagline — has a global presence with operations in nine countries, 3,500 employees and annual sales of about $220 million, with exports to 75 countries, accounting for about 60 percent of revenue.

Its five fluid conveyance factories are all in Chennai, with the original thermoplastic plant now augmented by facilities that produce rubber hydraulic hose, couplings, stainless steel hose and hose accessories.

And Polyhose also has evolved with how it views its place in the market.

"As a company, we are rebranding ourselves from fluid conveyance to energy conveyance, because we believe fluid also is a form of energy. Everybody is talking about the buzz word of energy," Asger told Rubber News.
Polyhose, he added, does a lot of work with automotive and OEMs, and all of them are pushing for higher sustainability standards, which brings with it the need to pass a number of audits.

Overall, its business is split between mobile on-road, which is where much of its thermoplastic hose and nylon tubing is used, and mobile off-road, where rubber hydraulic hose and fittings are the main products. Asger said rubber accounts for about half of overall sales.

North America accounts for about 35 percent of its export market, Europe another 30 percent and the balance is among the world's other regions.

He said its presence in North America started small, in 2002, with a paint spray hose supplied to one OEM, and has grown from there.

"Our growth has been driven by the growth of our customers, especially by adding customers by word of mouth," Asger said. "We're not very strong on being present everywhere in all shows. But all of our customers needed good product, and told other people there is a manufacturer in India that makes good products. And that's how we grew."

Polyhose showed its further commitment to North America when it invested $8 million to build a 52,000-square-foot distribution and assembly center in Wilmington, N.C., replacing a 10,000-square-foot center in New Jersey.

"It's important because it's not a rented facility. It's our own facility. The land is ours. The building is ours and we have the ability to expand another 52,000 square feet," said Raja Rajagopalan, senior vice president of distributor sales.

Rajagopalan is an industry veteran who spent most of his career with Eaton and was brought on in February 2020 to focus on helping the Indian firm build up its U.S. business.

"The reason I'm working with Polyhose is to help Polyhose as an Indian company grow in the United States," he said. "I pretty much know what is happening in the marketplace and know most of the people in the business.

"Our business from North Carolina is more than 99.9 percent distribution. That's what our focus is, growth through distribution."

And Rajagopalan said the quality of the Polyhose product line is what is helping drive new business, along with the breadth of its product line. While some hose manufacturers offer one or two things to the market, Polyhose can set itself up as a single-stop shop, offering hydraulic hose, PTFE and thermoplastic hose, metal hose and accessories.

"Everything Polyhose sells in the marketplace is made by ourselves," he said. "Add to that the market knowledge and customer intimacy that I bring because of my experience, and that helps."

Revenue in North America has doubled over the past two years, Rajagopalan said, as it has increased its market penetration, offering both Polyhose-brand products along with private label goods that some larger distributors sell under their own name.

"We are not like many companies who say they are not going to sell to private brand," he told Rubber News. "There is a market for private brand. We're not saying we're only go to sell Polyhose brand. We want customer satisfaction 100 percent of the time. Not only with the quality, but also breadth of service.

"We make the fittings, we make the hose, we qualify the fittings. It's an engineered product, and we stand behind our product."

Asger said awareness of Polyhose has grown in the market, and now potential customers are seeing the firm is consistently in the market. "They are good products, and the people who have worked with Polyhose have grown," he said. "So they understand that there must be something right with what we are doing, with growth all around."

Rajagopalan said the investment in North Carolina also shows its commitment to the region, as the firm isn't looking to just ship containers of product to the U.S., but also offering the customer service that is vital in selling through distribution.

To that end, it brought on Kyle Kindt at the beginning of 2023 as customer service manager at the Wilmington site. His father previously operated a distribution business in South America that he worked at, and he spent more than four years with hydraulic hose firm Balflex USA — a vendor for his father's firm — before joining Polyhose.

"Being a distributor in my past history, I know how another distributor thinks," Kindt said. "When a customer buys from us, I put myself in their shoes and see how they would like to be treated in the marketplace."

Asger said Polyhose also has seen strong growth in Europe, with sales almost tripling there over the past five years. It particularly gained share during the COVID-19 pandemic, when weakness was exposed in the supply chain of other manufacturers.

"We had the capacity available, the infrastructure available, and we just grew," he said. "A lot more people saw us deliver, and that is making people look at other sources."

Looking forward, Asger said Polyhose will explore expanding its manufacturing and rubber mixing capabilities, and spreading into new product lines such as silicone hose, farm hose and brake hose.