PERSEVERANCE, PATIENCE, and adaptability make up the secret sauce responsible for the success of Nirmal Kumar Minda, the executive chairman of Uno Minda. A veteran of India’s auto ancillaries industry, Minda has spent nearly half a century toiling in the space and navigated the licence raj, the entry of Japanese OEMs, liberalisation and deregulation of the industry, and the Covid-19 pandemic.

“For me, every adversity has presented itself as an opportunity,” he says. Adversity is not new to Minda, who joined the family business — then called Minda Industries — at just 17, after his father spread himself thin running the business, which took a toll on his health. From a single factory in Delhi’s Wazirabad, the company now operates 75 facilities worldwide, expanding the footprint of a business that began from a workshop in Kamla Nagar in New Delhi, where it was established by Shadi Lal Minda, Nirmal Minda’s father, in 1958.

From revenues of ₹2 crore in 1982, the company has grown to ₹16,775 crore in net sales in FY25, with a three-year CAGR of 26.4%, and a PAT of ₹943 crore, with a three-year CAGR of 38.4%. Currently, the market capitalisation of the auto and ancillaries major — listed on the exchanges since 1996 — is around ₹71,056 crore.

However, the three ingredients of Minda’s success have been put to the test in the past five years, as the industry navigated the Covid-19 pandemic, one supply-chain crisis after another, and more recently, being subjected to sectoral and reciprocal tariffs. “The learning from all these challenges is never to give up. For every problem, you need to have a solution. These kinds of challenges require a cross-functional team within the group, and as a leader, you must motivate the employees,” Minda says.

During the semiconductor supply crunch, a cross-functional team was formed at Uno Minda. “There was rationing of semiconductors, and the supplies dried up. The prices of semiconductors in the open market shot up ten-fold. Our vendors used to ask for a roadmap of 18 to 24 months in advance, without which they would not confirm the order.”

The team brainstormed about what could be done to salvage the situation. “We spoke to OEMs to determine what should be done, and solutions came out,” Minda says. Similarly, the team collaborated during the rare earth supply crunch. “We thought about alternatives, technologies that were not dependent on rare-earth magnets, how to improve the supply chain and optimise the supply chain.”

While Uno Minda’s exposure to the tariffs is limited — exports to the U.S. account for about 1.5% of the company’s total revenue — he believes that such tariffs are detrimental to industry. “In the auto components industry, it is not easy to switch suppliers overnight. It takes time for development and validation to occur. The entire process takes about one-and-a-half years to fructify,” says Minda.

The Uno Minda chairman reveals that some U.S.-based clients had requested some absorption of the impact of the tariffs. “We absorbed some of the impact as a gesture of goodwill, but we can’t absorb 25% or 50%. I would say that there is no impact as of now, and I don’t foresee any impact in the next year. But by that time, I believe things would settle, and a consensus would be reached,” he explains.

The imposition of tariffs has raised the issue of auto ancillary firms moving up the value chain. For Minda, the importance of investing in proprietary tech came in earlier. “In 1992, we were late in coming to the Maruti Suzuki ecosystem. We have been supplying to Maruti Suzuki since its inception, but then the customer expectations changed. What may have worked for a Hindustan Motors or a Fiat did not work with Maruti Suzuki,” he recalls.

According to Minda, the cars produced by Hindustan Motors or Fiat in India were not exported, whereas Maruti Suzuki was expected to achieve a level of quality that was acceptable at a global level. “We obtained a technical licence in 1991, and by 1996, it had evolved into Uno Mindarika. I was trained in Japan to learn their best production and management practices,” he says. What followed was a series of technical licences and joint ventures aimed at gaining access to technology. Incidentally, Uno Mindarika, which manufactures automotive switches, is a JV with Japan’s Tokai Rika Co.

On the capex front, the company has logged ₹1,650 crore in FY25, which includes the cost of acquiring land in Kharkhoda (Haryana), Hosur (Tamil Nadu), and Bawal (Haryana) to support future expansion. In FY26, the company plans to spend a similar amount — ₹1,600 crore — of which ₹400 crore is for regular maintenance and the remaining for growth and investments.

Analysts remain positive on the company. “We remain positive about the long-term growth potential of Uno Minda as a play in the auto sector, driven by new product introductions, premiumisation trends, ongoing capacity building to meet industry demand, and a strong EV order book. Capacity expansion projects, the benefits of which are expected to materialise in the second half of FY26 and beyond, further support growth,” says a recent research note from Axis Securities.

Uno Minda has also been consistently ramping up its portfolio for both electric two-wheeler and four-wheeler platforms. Recently, it acquired the remaining 49.9% stake in its JV with FRIWO AG, gaining full ownership and reinforcing its position in EV power electronics. It also plans to acquire the remaining stake in its JV with Buehler Motor GmbH in the coming months. “These strategic moves aim to deepen integration, enhance control over key EV motor system technologies, and position the company as a full-stack solutions provider in the electric mobility space,” Axis Securities adds.

Analysts say that while in the medium term, ongoing capacity expansion initiatives, coupled with a robust order book, position it to outperform industry growth rates, in the near-term, elevated capex and a cautious demand outlook in the domestic industry can temper the upside potential of the auto ancillaries major.

About eight years ago, Minda realised the importance of having his own R&D. “We created a Centre for Research and Engineering and Advanced Technologies (CREATE) in Pune. We brought talent into this centre and told them to incubate projects and innovate, but there is no hurry. We wanted to achieve localisation of products without the need for a technical licence,” he says. Minda himself focusses on learning the new tech in the industry. “I attend auto shows worldwide to keep myself updated on all the emerging tech.”

The products created by CREATE were a raging success, according to Minda, and they took the proofs of concept to the OEMs. “For two years, the OEMs mulled whether to go ahead with the proofs of concept or not, how much their bandwidth is, whether the processes of R&D are up to the mark or not, how their validation process is,” he says. The OEMs provided Uno Minda with an opportunity to collaborate on proof-of-concepts. “We collaborated and created many products with them, including products for electric vehicles, such as off-board and on-board chargers, wireless chargers, USB ports, and they were successful.”

Every year, Uno Minda hosts an innovation meet. “We encourage all our employees to innovate. In my view, there are three kinds of innovation. Incremental, diversified, and radical. We acknowledge and reward innovations in all categories in both designs and processes,” he says.

Minda says that a few years ago, the government was offering a tax incentive for R&D. “In fact, a few people have misused that incentive. I believe the government should increase monitoring, but not to the extent of creating excessive red tape, as seen in the PLI scheme, which has led to delays. The processes should not be overly cumbersome, but there should be at least one or two key indicators linked, such as requesting proof that the level of localisation has increased, or imports have decreased. Ultimately, if we reduce imports, India will be near China in five to 10 years’ time. Currently, we are far behind China, especially in electric vehicles,” he explains.

While the imposition of tariffs jolted the auto ancillaries space, it also has a cause for celebration. The government has introduced a uniform GST rate for automotive components, a long-standing demand of the industry. “These reforms will further the idea of the ease of doing business. There is some confusion and dispute related to cess, but those disputes will be tidied up eventually,” he says.

The second benefit of the GST rationalisation, Minda says, is that the earlier rate of 28% on auto components was high to begin with. “It was too great a burden for the common man. Reduced GST rates would also mean that the inflow of GST will increase for the government, because the volumes will increase,” he says, adding that the consumption levels of a typical consumer — whose journey is from a moped all the way to a luxury car — will also increase.

Another area that component-makers like Minda have to navigate is the evolving relationship with China. The clampdown on the supply of rare-earth magnets notwithstanding, there is a perceptible thaw in the hitherto frosty relationship between India and China.

China is an important ally for auto components-makers in India, both as a source of raw materials and proprietary technology. “They are the leaders in the automobile industry, especially in the electric vehicles segment. Out of the 30 million cars they manufacture every year, 40% of the cars are electric vehicles. This has happened in the last two decades, the rise of products developed in China,” Minda says.

According to Minda, if the focus is not on import substitution as much as it is on exports, then the situation for the auto components industry will be similar to that of smartphones. “Yes, there is value addition in the industry, but we are not doing a lot on the R&D front, and hence, we are not becoming self-reliant,” he says.

For Uno Minda — and the auto components industry at large — the next two to three years, according to Minda, is about focussing on self-reliance. “This can definitely be achieved by incentivising R&D in the industry,” he says.