Aniket Pujari
The company currently has 10 manufacturing facilities spread across India, Mexico, China, Serbia, the United States, and other key countries.
In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Sunjay Kapur, Chairman of Sona Comstar, reflected on the company’s achievements over the past 25 years and shared his ambitious vision for the future.
Below is the verbatim transcript of the interview.
Q: Give us a sense of how all of this came about 25 years ago? The company was incorporated in 1995 as Sona Okegawa Precision Forgings Limited. It was a Japanese 75:25 JV. Tell us the thinking and the vision with which with it came about?
Kapur: So we started in 1995. My father started his life making here. He started a company called Bharat Gears Limited. So he had this great passion for gears. And we had an opportunity with Mitsubishi, this is right after we started Sona Koyo. Sona Koyo, was then called Sona Steering Systems Limited, and it was started back in 1987, production in 1989.
In 1995, we had an opportunity to joint venture with Mitsubishi Materials, which was licensed by a company called BLW to make warm forged gears. And we took the opportunity because we saw an opportunity in the market to make bevel gears. And that’s how we started back in the day, it was called Sona Okegawa Precision Forgings Limited because Mitsubishi’s plant was in a place called Okegawa.
Q: Give us a sense of how much the company has grown in the last 25 years. We just referred to the 10 manufacturing units you have in India and abroad. But how much has the company really grown?
Kapur: We’ve grown almost 30% year on year. It’s been a great growth story for us. We’ve grown through a lot of, you know, effort in terms of R&D, a lot of development. We’ve built the differential gear business over a period of time. And we’ve expanded to differentials from just pure play bevel gears.
Q: If we were to also ask you about your vision, every chairman has a certain vision for his company. What would your vision be if I were to ask you what does Sunjay Kapur want his company to look like in the next 25 years?
Kapur: So we’ve been very focused on technology, we will continue to focus on technology I think that’s the way to look at businesses like ours. We’ve been in the automotive space, we’re now looking at mobility as a space. Who knows, 20 years from now mobility as a space will change. A lot of energy transition will happen in mobility and we’ll continue to grow in that space, continue to invest in technology and continue to be a technology-oriented business.
Q: What about your growth plans in terms of setting up more capacity either in India or abroad?
Kapur: We love manufacturing in India. We have assembly plants in Mexico, in the US, in China as well, we’ve got a facility in Serbia which does sensors. So, we will continue to manufacture as much as we can in India. We have expanded capacity in bevel gears and in differentials, and we’ll continue to expand capacity, as the market requires it.
We have been fortunate that we have close to 9% of the global market with differential gears. Our differential business itself is also expanding and we’ll continue to add capacity as and when required.
Q: Considering you’re such a big supplier to the passenger vehicle industry, does the current lack of demand somehow worry you?
Kapur: Our industry is cyclical. It goes through cycles. We supply to every segment within the automotive industry, so we’re supplying to commercial vehicles, off-highway, farm equipment, we do traction motors for electric two-wheelers and electric three-wheelers, and we do passenger car. By virtue of size, passenger car is the largest because globally, passenger car volumes are such. And like I said, we go through cycles, and these cycles happen in every industry, in every sort of economy as well. And we can weather the storm. It’s not something that’s bothering us. Our business is still growing because we’re capturing more market share within customers, so it’s been a good run for us.
