The company said it received significant orders during the quarter, including the successes in new revenue streams. Its third quarter orders were up 23 percent compared with last year. “Our order book is getting stronger, helped by core business growth as well as new revenue streams, and we continue to be positive on the market outlook,” said country head and Managing Director Biplab Majumder in a press statement.  

ABB India said that in addition to power and automation projects, the standard product business continues to grow at an accelerated pace. “Today, ABB is rated among India's blue chip companies and recognized as a market leader in power and automation technologies. The company has over 6,500 employees with an extensive local manufacturing and marketing presence across the country, and a national network of over 750 channel partners. Besides serving the domestic market, the company also has a significant level of exports. ABB’s business portfolio in India is represented across five divisions,” he added.  

“The company is making steady progress on its charted course and has been growing at an accelerated pace. We shall continue to increase ‘depth’ and ‘breadth,’ and at the same time, strengthen our resource base and sharpen our delivery systems,” he pledged.  

Rockwell metamorphosis  

As it announced its fourth-quarter earnings, Rockwell Automation Inc. issued a stronger-than-expected outlook for 2008. The company, which reported 2007 sales of $5 billion, also projected 2008 sales to grow by 10 percent to 12 percent. Chief Executive Keith Nosbusch said he expects the fastest growth in Asian economies such as China, India and Korea, where Rockwell is aiming for 20 percent sales increases in the coming year. U.S. sales, by contrast, will grow in the “mid-single digits,” he said.  

Much of the fascination with Rockwell stems from its ongoing metamorphosis from a manufacturer of motors and mechanized factory automation gear into a software and computer-services company that networks factories to increase efficiency. Nosbusch, who used the term transformation repeatedly to describe the company, said Rockwell reached a milestone with January’s divestiture of its Power Systems unit, which makes gears and motors.  

The Indian unit of Germany-based Siemens AG has won an order worth $22 million from Mcnally Bharat Engineers Pvt Ltd to supply electrical equipment for Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd's (RINL) new sinter plant in the southern Indian city of Vizag. Siemens also received an order worth $83 million from Tata Steel to provide the power distribution network solutions for its greenfield integrated steel plant at Kalinganagar, Orissa.  

Schneider outpaces  

Schneider Electric, the Rueil-Malmaison, France-based automation supplier, has said a big part of industrial investments would come to India and the Asia Pacific region as they form strong growth centers for the company. Speaking in connection with the launch of the company's ninth global manufacturing plant in India at Hyderabad recently, Henri Lachmann, chairman, Schneider Electric, said the company is growing at 30 per cent annually in India, much faster than ...