From near insolvency to EV powerhouse: Priya Kapur recounts Sona Comstar’s global turnaround

India’s auto component sector has moved from being the world’s back office to becoming a strategic partner in global mobility transformation, Priya Kapur, Non-Executive Director at Sona Comstar, said at the 60th ACMA Excellence Awards & Technology Summit 2026 in New Delhi.

Delivering her first public keynote, Kapur framed India’s rise within the broader reset of global automotive supply chains. As OEMs rethink sourcing strategies around resilience, engineering depth and execution reliability, India is no longer a low-cost alternative but a central pillar of global strategy, she noted.

The shift reflects a move from build-to-print manufacturing to technology-led co-development and system-level capabilities, supported by policy continuity and initiatives such as the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, she clamed.

A crisis that compelled a strategic reset

Kapur anchored her address in Sona Comstar’s own transformation story. In FY2015, the company faced halved German sales, mounting debt obligations and liquidity stress, while its US operations were incurring steep monthly losses. Domestic revenues were modest and the business stood close to insolvency.

That inflection point—later documented in a Harvard Business School case study—forced a fundamental rethink of strategy, ambition and global positioning.

Betting early on electrification

Over the past decade, Sona Comstar has repositioned itself from a domestic precision forgings supplier into a global mobility technology company, with manufacturing and R&D footprints across India, the United States, Mexico, Serbia and China. The pivot rested on three pillars: expanding into technology-intensive products, diversifying geographically and making early investments in electric mobility.

Today, the company offers more than 22 products spanning driveline systems, traction motors and sensors. Battery electric vehicle programmes account for 36% of product revenues in FY25, supported by a $2.8 billion order book, most of it linked to EVs. Sustained R&D investments of about 3% of revenues continue to underpin its technology focus.

Concluding, Kapur paid tribute to late Sunjay Kapur’s belief that technology leadership must precede market leadership—a philosophy she said continues to guide the company’s global ambitions.