BUILT WITH PRECISION

From innovation to strategic acquisitions, Sona BLW is a success story in the automotive components space.

- VIDHI TAPARIA

IT HAS BEEN five years since Covid-19 unfurled its tentacles across the globe—locking doors, shutting shops, and bringing movement to a standstill. Neither owners nor their vehicles were moving. Demand vanished overnight as assembly lines grounded to a halt, and the once-steady rhythm of global auto component supply chains came to a stop.

Gurugram-based Sona BLW Precision Forgings (Sona Comstar), used that period of uncertainty to innovate and diversify, doubling down on the engineering excellence that had brought it this far.

“Production nahi ho raha hai to R&D pe paisa lagao (if production is not happening, spend money on R&D then),” says Vivek Vikram Singh, MD and group CEO, Sona BLW Precision Forgings. The company recorded its highest R&D spend of ₹91.5 crore in FY21, almost 6% of its ₹1,566.3 crore revenue that year. While R&D spends since haven't matched the FY21 peak, Sona Comstar made rapid strides since its 2021 IPO. It launched eight new products—one in FY24—which were commercialised faster than before. These accounted for close to half of its ₹20,700 crore order wins in FY24.

Today, Sona Comstar is a ₹3,185 crore business (FY24), with a 28.3% Ebitda margin and profit after tax nearly doubling to ₹517 crore. It is the eighth company on Fortune India’s 100 Emerging Stars list. The company has a robust three-year net income CAGR of 26.69%. It had a CAGR of 30.3% between FY17 and H1FY24, outpacing the sector's 4.8%.

It has cemented its position as the world’s largest manufacturer of differential gears, commanding an 8.8% global market share, along with a 4.4% share in starter motors as of CY24. Domestically, Sona Comstar dominates with over 60% share in the passenger vehicles (PV) segment, 90% in commercial vehicles, and 85% in tractors, serving a wide array of Indian OEMs.

Innovation & diversification