Fertilizer Market in India 2012

The report begins with an introduction of different types of fertilizers produced in India categorized as organic, bio and chemical fertilizers. Chemical fertilizer is the focus of the report, which also includes water soluble fertilizers. The market overview section provides details about the domestic fertilizer production, consumption, demand and import levels. The production overview section entails production of fertilizers both nutrient-wise, as well as product-wise, while the consumption overview section includes nutrient-wise and zone-wise consumption of fertilizers. India's fertilizer consumption has grown at a CAGR of 6.9% from 2006-07 to 2009-10. The demand overview section provides a clear idea about the demand-supply situation of the fertilizer market, including product-wise demand, availability and sales of fertilizers in the country. The import overview section comprises product-wise import of fertilizers along with the installed capacity of fertilizers both nutrient-wise, as well as product-wise.

Furthermore, the report provides a detailed description of the fertilizer sales in South Zone covering states such as Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka are the key sales hub in Southern India. Porter's Five Forces analysis depicts an overall market scenario.

A brief description of the drivers that helps the sector to prosper includes large subsidies, capitalization of opportunity presented by low consumption, increase in food grain production and appropriate monsoon. Cost of production of fertilizers is high owing to its inputs like naptha or even natural gas. Fertilizers manufacturing is a tedious process that usually ends up having high costs. In order to prevent reduced profitability due to high input costs, players hike prices transferring the increased cost burden to end consumers. This has a negative impact on the domestic fertilizer market as small farmers face acute affordability issues. The Indian Government witnessed this trend and offered large subsidies to the players in a bid to keep the prices moderate and result in off-takes. It has insulated the farmers from price hikes even in times of price rise in raw materials thereby keeping it more within the reach of them. Even though India has witnessed a rise in fertilizer consumption over the period of time, it is still low against the global average. Countries including China, Malaysia and Bangladesh rank above India in terms of fertilizer consumption. Low usage poses as opportunity that can be capitalized by the players both from the perspective of production and consumption. Fertilizers find its usage in enhancing food productivity and thereby as food grain production increases, fertilizers also witness an upward movement. Finally, good monsoon acts as a potential stimulant for the growth of the sector. As agriculture in India is predominantly monsoon dependent, good spells of rainfall gets translated into higher usage of fertilizers with the purpose of enhancing crop yields. Whereas, factors identified as a hindrance to the market include increased prices of raw materials, price hike in natural gas and environmental degradation by fertilizers.

The next section talks about Government regulation in the sector and primarily includes Department of Fertilizers, nutrient based subsidy and certain Government schemes.

The major trends identified in the sector include water soluble fertilizers, shift to gas based fertilizer units and increasing joint ventures in the sector.

The competition section outlays the competitive landscape of the fertilizer market in India briefing about the domestic and foreign players existing in the market. This section provides a three dimensional analysis of domestic key players' revenues, profits and market capitalization. The report also features brief profiles of major domestic and foreign players in the market and a snapshot of their corporation, financial performance along with the key financial ratios, business highlights and their product portfolio providing an insight into the existing competitive scenario.

Some of the key statistics covered in the report includes, production of fertilizers (nutrient-wise), production of fertilizers (product-wise), consumption of fertilizers (nutrient-wise), consumption of fertilizers (zone-wise), product-wise demand, sales and availability of fertilizers, import of fertilizers (product-wise), installed capacity product-wise and nutrient wise, total fertilizer sales of South India, South India Sales (State-wise), Porter's Five Forces analysis, growth of subsidies on fertilizer, amount of concession disbursed on decontrolled indigenous P&K, decontrolled imported P&K, indigenous urea, imported urea, per hectare fertilizer consumption, food grain production in India, rainfall trend in India, Price hike of raw materials-Ammonia, Phosphoric and Sulphur, price hike in natural gas and nutrient based subsidy per kg of nutrient.

The report concludes with a section on key recent developments and strategic recommendations which comprises an analysis of the growth strategies of the fertilizer market in India.