SKF India Ltd. (a 54% owned division of SKF AB, Sweden; 5251R9N7) said profits should improve this year as the domestic economy improves. SKF India is considered a bellwether for the bearing industry in what had been a reliably and predictably fast-growing geographic sector of the world economy.

Managing Director Shishir Joshipura indicated SKF India's OEM customers, particularly manufacturers of two-wheelers and automobiles, are seeing strengthening demand into 2010. He indicated this is generally true across all of Asia right now.

Rising demand from SKF's customers can be traced directly to higher household earnings across the entire region. According to the Indian government, rising wages are expected to spark consumer-driven economic growth of up to 10% for the next few years.

Underscoring that economic strength, SKF opened two delayed bearing manufacturing plants earlier this year in India -- Haridwar and Ahmedabad. SKF India now has two bearing factories in Bangalore, and one each in Pune, Haridwar, and Ahmedabad. Total capacity of the existing plants was just over 100 million bearings per year.

article: SKF opens two bearing plants in India
The Indian market's continued growth has caught manufacturers off guard, expecting the global economic slowdown to have a larger impact on the country's fast-growing vehicle population, as well as higher demand from industrial customers.

Earlier this year, SKF indicated another promising sign -- that it expects to be able to cautiously start raising prices to cover increased raw material costs.

SKF India's sales are evenly split between automotive and industrial. That demand, combined with fresh growth in the two-wheeler and industrial bearing sectors, have Mr. Joshipura now projecting sales to be up approximately 20% to 25% in 2010 from 2009 -- and SKF India to notch its first year-on-year profit rise since 2007.