Boxed by rising input prices, stagnant demand and production, galloping domestic and export freight costs, have forced the safety matches manufacturers to increase the price by Re 1 per box after 14 years.
Yes… You heard it right, the price hike of Re 1 per box sold by retail outlets has been implemented after 14 years.
Perhaps the safety matches industry is afflicted by 14 year itch since the earlier per box price increase by 50 paise to Re 1 also happened after 14 years.
“It is not right to call it a price hike. Since the industry has decided to increase the number of sticks per box resulting in resizing of the match box. We hope this would result in a better product for the customers,” J. Vijayanand, Secretary, The All India Chamber of Match Industries, told IANS.
According to him, prices of raw materials like boards, chemicals, wax have gone up.
“The board price has gone up from Rs 35/kg to Rs 54 and continues to rise. Similarly, potassium chlorate is costing about Rs 84/kg from Rs 65/kg, phosphorus Rs 830/kg from Rs 430/kg and expected to touch Rs 1,000/kg. The wood used to come from Europe and now its price has gone up,” he said.
While the manufacturers supply in bundles (each bundle will have 600 boxes), sales of single box constitute the major market segment.
The per bundle cost will now be about Rs 430-480 up from Rs 270-300.
Vijayanand, who is also the Managing Director of The Comorin Match Industries P Ltd, Kovilpatti in Tamil Nadu, added that the safety match industry in India will be about Rs 2,400 crore.
Nearly 80 per cent of the industry is concentrated in Kovilpatti, Sivakasi, Sattur and nearby places in Tamil Nadu.
Industry players told IANS that overseas and in India the demand for safety matches has been stagnating due to varied reasons like usage of lighters by cigarette smokers and also smokers cutting down on their habit, rural electrification, spread of automatic ignition gas stoves and others.
The match sticks are largely used in lighting lamps, candles, gas stoves in India, Asian, African and other countries, industry players told IANS.
