The New Auto Champions

As industry enters a new growth phase, emerging ancillary players are shaking up the status quo.

- Rishi Kant

WISDOM CAN COME from the most unexpected of places. “The Indian automobile industry is witnessing a renaissance. Customers have become pickier, and choosy. They have become tech savvy and want a brand persona,” actor Shah Rukh Khan, brand ambassador of Hyundai Motor India Ltd. said while unveiling Hyundai Ioniq 5 at the recent Auto Expo, which hosted leaders of the world’s biggest automakers.

He may have read from a script but his speech encapsulated the tectonic shift under way in the Indian automobile industry. Nothing makes the changes more apparent than the scorching pace of growth shown by mid-level auto and ancillary companies in spite of regulatory changes, Covid-19, semiconductor scarcity and commodity price spike triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The 53 auto and ancillary players in Fortune India The Next 500 list grew cumulative revenues by 30% to ₹87,113 compared with ₹66,990 crore last year. Of this, makers of auto parts take the cake—of these 53 fastest-growing companies, as many as 50 belong to the ancillary industry.

And why not? Domestically, auto companies sold 37,92,356 passenger vehicles in 2022, highest in a year, eclipsing the previous high of 2021, according to data from Society Of Indian Automobile Manufacturers. Maruti Suzuki India Ltd., India’s largest passenger vehicle maker and industry bellwether, exported 2,63,068 units, 28% more than its previous record in 2021.