UPS solutions are a must have as a majority of industries depend on assured supply of electricity to function unhindered. UPS solutions help businesses bridge the demand-supply gap and beat power shortage and power failures with élan.

The growing Indian industry is constantly paralyzed by an erratic power supply. At present, there is a huge gap between the power demanded and the power supplied. Power shortage in most parts of the country is one of the most important drivers of growth in the power management market. With an increase in power failures, there has been a spiral increase in the demand for a consistent flow of power and back up systems. All these factors have made UPS solutions a must have as a majority of industries depend on assured supply of electricity to function unhindered.UPS solutions help businesses bridge the demand-supply gap and beat power shortage and power failures with élan.

Market Dynamics

The Indian UPS market was held to be worth Rs. 2,600 crore in 2008-09. The market can be broken into the organized and the unorganized segments. APC, Emerson, DB Power Numeric Power, GE (including Cholride), Aplab, and Eaton account for nearly 55 percent of the market. The balance 45 odd percent was accounted for by vendors such as Delta, E&C, Elnova, HP, Hi-Rel, Intex, Luminous, Mercury, PCI, Powerone, Proview Powercom, Socomec, TVS Electronics, Tritronics, Vesta, and Wipro among others.

The industry is seeing a shift of customer preference toward the organized sector lately. Metros, which have the highest density of business units, make up most of the market for power products. However, Tier II and Tier III cities are also showing an increase in demand. As these cities are seeing increased activity in R&D, ITeS, BPO, retail, hospitality, and manufacturing verticals, the need for comprehensive network uptime solutions is becoming a huge imperative because of the criticality of operations in these sectors. The growth in the UPS market is directly linked with the IT spend and on IT product lines such as laptop and desktop sales. The increasing penetration of PCs provides a big impetus to demand for UPS 
solutions.

Market and Technology Trends

The focus is now on solutions that offer space savings. UPS solutions are being designed to incorporate higher wattage per cubic inch since real estate costs are escalating. Rack mountable solutions are becoming the norm with increasing move to rack mountable form-factor for IT environments. This is driven by the need to manage the IT environment in more compact space. UPS solutions are becoming more efficient. This is reducing their running costs.

UPS solutions are expected to have the capability to provide back up during prolonged power cuts. UPS are now coming with larger chargers, external chargers, and capability to manage, diagnose, and optimize large banks of batteries. UPS systems are decreasing the mean time to recover as serviceability of solutions is a major concern. Next-generation power requirements have inspired recent developments in UPS technology that include improved battery management, advancements in power density and footprint, as well as robust software offerings and monitoring services.

Growth Drivers

Tremendous growth in the telecom sector has resulted in a continuous demand of UPS solutions from telecom operators. Telecom central offices typically operate from large battery banks (DC power). They also include AC powered equipment like servers, storage systems, or routers that require specific power supplies called inverters. The rapid deployment of third-generation mobile phone systems like UMTS creates new opportunities for UPSs and inverters in base stations.

Power shortage is the most important growth driver of the UPS market. The buyer community today has become more aware about the quality of power and conditioning of power which provides a boost to the growth of this segment. Increasing number of PC penetration in home and SOHOs has also amplified the business potential for UPS. The increasing reliance on machines and automation in SMBs and industries such has healthcare, pharmaceuticals, banking and telecom is driving the growth of UPS solutions.

Challenges

The Indian UPS market faces a multitude of challenges that are impeding its growth. The increasing cost of raw material like battery and packaging material has led to a decrease in margins for vendors. The unorganized sector is a major constituent of the total market and is giving stiff competition to the organized sector. Penetrations in the market are also an issue for players due to lack of awareness in customers.

Impact of Slowdown

The global meltdown has forced enterprises to cut down on their expenditures. IT and IT infrastructure segment are the worst hit. The slowdown across sectors has led to demand de growth, but other sectors have maintained momentum and hence markets have been satisfactory. Organizations are switching to high efficient UPS systems that result in greater cost saving for the organization. The slowdown has re aligned focus among companies and induced drive to develop highly customizable and innovative solutions for customers

Outlook

The economy is already on the path to recovery and markets are expected to improve. Demand will be generated across sectors and there will be a huge requirement of energy efficient products. Focus on environment friendly products and high precision innovative products will be required by industries. Power management applications involve increasing power density, which is compressing more power in the same space, plus putting in value some additions like energy management and prioritizing loads. The power management solutions are going to gain increasing importance as they reduce the total cost of ownership and increase the return on investment on infrastructure costs.

The Indian UPS market will witness continuous growth in future, driven by steady demand from sectors like banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), telecom, retail, information technology and information technology enabled services (IT/ITeS), manufacturing, infrastructure, and others. In the coming decade, the manufacturer would turn to be a power solution provider from just manufacturing a UPS. The UPS market is prepared to offer end-to-end solutions, thereby enabling organizations to ensure high availability for their mission critical data centers and networks.