With the volume business almost shifting to cheap manufacturing destinations like Bangladesh, Indian exporters are constantly diversifying their product basket in a strategy to move to low volume yet high margin products. Sometimes it means more than notching up the value addition and exploring a completely unchartered territory. One prospective product segment is equestrian apparels, the clothing for horse riders.
There are 6.9 million horses in the US and 7.1 million Americans who are involved in the industry as horse owners, service providers, employees and volunteers, of which an approximate 5.5 million are horse riders in recreational or racing activities. The market is even more compelling across the Atlantic. UK alone has 4.3 million horse riders, with over 2 million of these riding at least once a month. This makes riding a horse more popular than any other sport like cricket, rugby or fishing. Professionally, there are approximately 1,500 race meetings held annually at Britain’s 60 race courses, with over 90,000 runners competing in some 9,000 races.
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- There are 6.9 million horses in the US and 5.5 million riders, contributing to an industry of US $ 25.3 billion.
- Alone in the UK there are 4.3 million riders, of which over 2 million are riding at least a month.
- China is the latest entrant in the sport with 2 million riders, giving rise to a domestic and manufacturing market.[/bleft]
It is baffling that the US horse industry directly produces goods and services of US $ 25.3 billion and has a total impact of US $ 112 billion on the US GDP, making its contribution greater than the motion picture services, rail-road transportations, and tobacco manufacturing industries.
Another aspect is that the median income for all US households is US $ 36,000, while the median income for horse owning households is US $ 60,000, thus reflecting that there is an affluent customer base to cater to.
Not to be left behind, 2 million Chinese have augmented their attention to equestrian sports with Beijing and Shanghai exerting their presence even in show jumping and dressage, while Hong Kong being a potentially major player in horse racing, the ‘sport of kings’, the only legal form of gambling in Hong Kong, is embraced with unbridled fervour, pulls in more than HKD 91 billion. China’s persistence to improve its competitiveness at every sport in the Olympic Games, slated are six events before next Olympic that involves horse riding, making it not only a market for consumption but also a growing hub for manufacturing equestrian clothing.
Unlike other sport or leisure which can be played or carried out in your average polo neck T-shirt and shorts, horse riding requires specific traditional and performance-oriented clothing. A helmet, a jacket, a breech, and a boot are the best composition for a horse rider’s attire; breeches being the highest volume segment amongst them all. This niche product can fetch high prices with the FOB ranging from US $ 10-12 to easily up to US $ 30. Yet there are only a handful of manufacturers of equestrian clothing in the country. Amongst them, the unarguable leader in manufacturing equestrian clothing is JPC, closely followed by Superhouse. While JPC caters to customers in 55 countries with self-owned brands like JPC, Tuffrider, Baker, Kingsland, whereas Superhouse has built on its expertise from the Rs. 1,000 crore leather business to project a turnover of over Rs. 232 crore in the coming FY, 30% of which comes from making breeches.
[bleft]“Mostly we do all the product development and present our designs at Spoga Horse Fair, held twice in Germany. This fair brings the maximum business to our company.” – Mukhtarul Amin Chairman – Superhouse Group[/bleft]
Another player, may be smaller today but has all the potential to grow big, is Noida based Ascot International which manufactures equestrian clothing with a setup of 100 sewing machines. Under the flourishing leadership of Arun Handa, Director of the company and a NIFT GMT Graduate, Ascot International has successfully strived in the price-competitive market, working with wholesalers and importers majorly dealing with the European market.
Kanpur is the major leather hub in the northern part of India. Since the pre-independence era Britishers had established stables in Kanpur and they also taught karigars how to tend to the horses and other allied work. Today Kanpur has around 50-60 small to mid-size players like Treadstone, Surender Saddlery and Janak Leather Exports, for equestrian products which also include breeches. Even though breeches are not the principal product for these companies, they produce it to fill their capacities or to meet the additional demands of their buyers or to complete their equestrian product basket. Small in size and without a dedicated product line, these companies work with wholesalers, importers and receive all the design details from them, whereas Superhouse also works with big retailers and International brands like Ariat who occasionally send their own designs. Mukhtarul Amin, the Chairman of Superhouse Group says, “Mostly we do all the product development and present our designs at Spoga Horse Fair, held twice in Germany. This fair brings the maximum business to our company.” JPC on the other hand has established its own brands worldwide, a strategy that Amin too recommends, earning the reputation of pioneer of equestrian clothing in India.
Highlighting the evolution of breeches, Amin says, “Earlier the garments used to be more formal but now more value addition is being demanded like embellishments, embroidery or trims. Even more colours are being demanded while earlier breeches were limited to 4-5 formal colours. “The product offers perennial business for 10 months around a year and is retailed by equestrian goods retailors rather than apparel companies, explains Arun. “ Usually breeches are sold at an equine good store which are closer to stud farms or race courses and at times sold as promotional and complementary equine goods, he added.
Worldwide 45 Trade Shows are organized for Equestrian Sports, with Germany alone hosting 21 such shows like Spoga, Equimed, HansePferd and are Eurocheval while the rest are divided in 14 countries like USA, Canada, Australia, Serbia, Ukraine, Great Britain, Spain, France, Italy and Hungary. “Besides the international fairs, China also has 5-6 fairs of its own and even the dominance of Chinese companies can be seen at the 2013 edition of Spoga, with participation from 19 companies from China, which has all come up in the past 10 years,” shares Arun, who believes that it’s not about the love for horses, rather about impersonating the luxurious lifestyle of Europeans for the Chinese. “A lot of riding stadiums have been constructed in China and the Government is hiring coaches and consultants for improving the sport. Housing more than 6 lakh horses, the Inner Mongolia region of China has a lot of horse summits, shows and riding clubs,” he adds.
[bleft]“A lot of riding stadiums have been constructed in China and its Government is hiring coaches and consultants for improving the sports. Housing more than 6 lakh horses, the Inner Mongolia region of China has a lot of horse summits, shows and riding clubs.” – Arun Handa Director, Ascot International[/bleft]
Breeches demand specialty fabric, knit or woven that should be sweat resistant, dirt repellent and inhibit four-way stretchability as the garments are body hugging and necessitate extra stretch and strength. Sourcing the right fabric is the hardest part in manufacturing breeches. Being a high-end product, the order quantity is generally low, with small scale manufacturers making as less as 200 pieces. Thus, sourcing fabric for so small a volume is a challenge, and therefore the manufacturers have to usually pay a premium on the price to the suppliers. However, the same is not much of a problem for Superhouse which has established long standing rapport with its buyers. “If a buyer orders 500 pieces in a particular style and the minimum the fabric mills would supply is for 1,200 pieces, we would take firm commitment that the buyer will source 700 additional garments of the same fabric in the future,” explains Amin. However, he does agree that having a vertically integrated setup is the best choice while manufacturing breeches. He adds, “The real problem is not the price but the delay in delivery of fabrics. Since for suppliers, big fabric orders are always a priority over small quantities, many a times our order gets sidelined and delayed.” It is a good reason for Superhouse which now plans to start its own woven fabric manufacturing. He further adds, “Although going vertically integrated helps us in costing, lead time, as well as in improving the quality, the major focus of this 8 loom venture is on R&D to develop more performance-oriented fabrics.”
JPC already uses different varieties of yarns like cotton, polyester, nylon, as also branded performance yarns like Dryarn, Coolmax and Lycra to develop technically enhanced woven fabric with the right stretch. All new structures in woven fabric are first developed in bit looms in-house before being weaved using specialized world class weaving looms imported from Switzerland and Italy that can handle any kind of complex structured fabric. Some of the complex structures of woven fabric made in-house include four-way stretch corduroy with any wale specification, and jacquard terry towel fabric.
JPC has a world class fabric manufacturing & finishing facility with 37 looms and 40 knitting machines, which include circular, flat and German made warp knitting machines, which can knit almost every kind of knit fabric to get the desired quality and power stretch. All collars, sleeve cuffs, anti-pill polyester and poly viscose specialized stretch fleece fabrics are being made in-house with raising and shearing capability. Varun Sharma, President, JPC states, “When we started production, these fabrics were not available in India. Going vertical gave us a chance to work with innovative and specialty fabrics providing an edge in developments, while also taking full control over the entire supply line.”
