General Electric India is resetting its targets from the ambitious $8bn in revenue a year goal by 2010 it forecast three years ago as it juggles businesses affected by the global slowdown.
Tejpreet Singh Chopra, president and chief executive of GE India, said the group had scaled back some of its businesses, such as unsecured consumer lending and was pushing ahead with others, such as healthcare and bids for government fighter jet and train contracts.
“What we did was completely re-evaluate all of our projections,” Mr Chopra said at the World Economic Forum in New Delhi. “There’s been so much volatility.”
While he did not provide the new targets, he said the group made $2.6bn in revenue last year and was still “very much growing”.
This leaves it well short of the original targets, but the group’s domestic business could still surprise on the upside if several projects suddenly come through.
The group is hoping to build a locomotive factory in India and is waiting for a government request for proposal.
It is also bidding in the Indian air force’s proposed $10bn contract for a multi-role combat aircraft.
The country is seeking to buy 126 of the jet fighters and has begun year-long trials of the aircraft.
Boeing’s F/A-18 Super Hornet, France’s Dassault Rafale, Lockheed Martin’s F-16, Russia’s Mig-35, Sweden’s Saab JAS-39 Gripen and the Eurofighter Typhoon are all vying for the prize contract.
GE will be providing engines for the Super Hornet.
The group is also pushing into healthcare and expects to be a major provider of gas-fired power plant equipment once India’s new gas field, the KG Basin, hits full production.
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