Indian battery giant Exide Industries is considering further expansion of its lead acid battery manufacturing capacity to take advantage of a demand “sweet spot” in the sector.
CEO and MD Avik Roy said the market was witnessing a unique sweet spot for lead acid because demand from both original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and the aftermarket was growing concurrently.
“In the past, it never used to happen like this,” Roy told an earnings conference call on November 5.
Previously, if the OEM was growing, the aftermarket would be slow and vice-versa, Roy said.
Exide’s observations are in line with global analysis which has identified growth in both sectors, citing OEM demand being driven by rising factory-fit EV production, while aftermarket demand is driven by predictable replacement cycles of 12V and auxiliary batteries, even as EV fleets expand.
Roy said: “Now we see both the segments growing strongly concurrently, we are investing capital in de-bottlenecking each of our factories. Thankfully, we have multiple factories where brown-field expansion and brown-field de-bottlenecking is possible. So we are doing that.
“Substantial capital has been allocated to squeeze out every line, every asset.”
Roy said the company was discussing additional capacity after approaches by a number of automotive OEMs that have announced their own capacity expansions including to cater for conventional internal combustion engines.
“Since the automotive OEM market is growing, and we already had a very high market share — close to 60% in automotive OEM — we are growing along with the growth of the market.”
This helps in two ways, giving a favourable mix as the trade business to OEM business ratio remains robust. Secondly, it helps the company in allocating capacity to markets where margins are higher.
Batteries International has reported previously that Exide planned to invest more than Rs1,000 crore ($116 million) across its lead acid and lithium battery manufacturing businesses in the 2026 financial year, which ends on March 31, 2027 in India.
