Gurgaon-based auto ancillary giant Sona Group has set an ambitious target of almost tripling its turnover in the next five years. Sona Group chairman Surinder Kapur told FE that the company aims to become Rs 2,500-crore diversified conglomerate by 2015 from the current Rs 900 crore.
In this pursuit the company has earmarked a capital expenditure of Rs 80 crore in the current fiscal for upgrading its existing facilities in Gurgaon and Chennai. “Last year (2009-10) we had invested only Rs 12 crore but this year sensing the growing demand for automobiles we are going to invest up to Rs 80 crore,” Kapur said.
The company also expects a major chunk of its revenues to be generated from overseas markets in the coming few years. Over the last two decades, Sona Group had announced several business arrangements and entered into collaborations with leading vendors across the globe. Currently the company is present in Japan, France, South America and Korea.
“At present, our overseas revenues contribute very little to the company?but going forward many of our collaborations will mature and overseas revenues share will go up significantly,” Kapur added. He also hinted that the company may look to explore business potential in other emerging markets like China, Russia and Brazil in the future but ruled out any immediate plans for it.
Ruling out any adverse impact on the company’s net profit in 2010-11 due to rising raw material costs, Kapur said any increase in costs of steel, aluminum and rubber would be passed on to its clients. Sensing the opportunity from leading global auto giants like Renault, Nissan and Daimler among others revaluating their business strategy in favour of India, Kapur said it presented a big opportunity for Sona Group because of its domain experience.
