Bartronics bets big on government schemes

HYDERABAD, INDIA: Bartronics India, provider of automatic identification and data collection, is trying to become an end-to-end solutions provider and is targeting many government initiatives to boost business.

“In the future the company will see over 50 per cent of work coming from government initiatives,” informed Sudhir Rao, managing director, Bartronics India.

The central government has proposed the usage of smart cards for public distribution system, national rural employment guarantee scheme and for old age pension. Currently much of Bartronics’s revenues come from supplying smartcards to large telecom players including Bharti and Reliance, an area the company would like to exit in the future.

The smart card manufacturing unit located near Hyderabad will get a backward integration of chip modules later this year. This unit is expected to generate about 70-75 million smart cards in this financial year. This will enable it to bring RFID tag manufacturing in phase II of the company plans in the long term.

“We see a dip of about five per cent in RFID tags this year. The pharmacy regulations, manufacturing companies other than retail would be the drivers for the RFID market,” said Rao.

The company’s telecom customer’s requirements are being met and it will continue to be a revenue source for a while, added Rao.

Eye on Europe

The company would scout for an inorganic growth route to have a footprint in the European markets. “We are looking at a system integrator kind of technology company who will have footprint in some European companies around the size of 50 million dollars,” said Rao.

Bartronics also hopes to reach out to the Middle East.