Indian carmakers take a leaf out of Chinese playbook to bring out models quickly

Indian carmakers have reached parity with European, Japanese and Korean automakers and are increasingly catching up to the speed of Chinese carmakers in rolling out new products, according to top executives at US-based component major BorgWarner Inc. and homegrown auto part maker Lumax Auto Technologies Ltd.

This comes in the backdrop of Indian automobile manufacturer Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd reaching the number two rank in annual sales in 2025 for the first time in at least a decade, since retail registration data became available, toppling Korean carmaker Hyundai Motor India Ltd.

The shift is inevitable, Nalinikanth Gollagunta, CEO of Mahindra’s automotive division, said. “It used to be 5 years, with Inglo (Mahindra's vehicle platform), we are now at 33 months or so, but the notion is, we have to keep collapsing that, there is no question," Gollagunta said in an interview on the sidelines of XEV 9S launch in November. While high-end vehicles require more sophistication, in segments like sub-4-meter cars, “you need to have the agility to move fast."

Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles Ltd did not respond to Mint's request for comments. However, auto component makers and analysts suggest that the acceleration is broadly in line with Indian carmakers looking to take a leaf out of China’s playbook and compete with European, Korean, and Japanese incumbents.

Rahul Bharti, senior executive officer-corporate affairs at Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, said that exports are the fire test of product development excellence, where an OEM can demonstrate how many markets its products can be successful in.

"As compared to many other manufacturers, we have a higher requirement because our product has to meet the consumer and regulatory requirements and live up to our brand promise in over 100 countries," he said.

"Our approach prioritizes first-time-right launches, long-term durability, electronics and software robustness, proactive regulatory preparedness, along with a supplier partner ecosystem. Owing to such advanced processes, our product development is able to meet the requirements of 18 models with more than 650 variants that clocked a volume of 18.44 lakh in domestic and about 4 lakh vehicles in exports in 2025," Bharti said.

Industry executives and experts suggest that product development for the Indian market, including that of foreign OEMs, typically ranges from 36-40 months, depending on the product. According to a November 2024 update from Boston Consulting Group, Chinese OEMs could roll out new products within 24 months. The country’s largest carmaker, Maruti Suzuki, and the third-largest carmaker, Hyundai Motor India, are units of Japanese Suzuki and Korean Hyundai.

Both Tata Motors and Mahindra receive a minuscule share of sales from international markets, with their products largely focused on the domestic market so far. In comparison, both Maruti and Hyundai get about one-fifth of their total sales through exports.

Digital acceleration

Industry executives say that digital tools, expanded auto component capacities and budgets, and flexible vehicle platforms are accelerating product development.

Chandrasekhar Krishnamurthy, global director and head of product management at BorgWarner, told Mint that Indian automakers are leaning towards the China playbook in how they develop new products, but with their own touch, including requests for specifications.

"In India, we are seeing that they want to also go in the same direction where they would like to have the China speed, but we also see that there are more specific requirements Indian OEMs want," Krishnamurthy said.

"Indian OEMs are also catching up to the China speed. Again, at the end of the day, what would really determine the speed of execution is the level of complexity that customers want, as well as the level that OEMs want. If they take what we have, it's a faster time to market. If they want to customize it, then it takes longer," he added.

The faster development of products for these carmakers hinges on working closely with auto component makers, who must provide the building blocks for new product development, backed by the technological prowess of the automaker.

Anmol Jain, managing director at Lumax Auto Technologies, told Mint that Indian OEMs have improved their agility and are also pushing suppliers to benchmark against Chinese companies to gain speed.

"Indian OEMs are way more agile and way more responsive and definitely faster than the Europeans or maybe some of the Japanese makers as well," Jain said.

"We are still far behind some of the Chinese OEMs. And hence, a lot of the Indian OEMs actually have a decent understanding of the Chinese market. And they're pushing some of the key component system makers to try and benchmark China and see how we can also have an accelerated development like what the Chinese do," Jain said.

New tier supplier

In a bid to gain speed, automakers are also preferring to work with suppliers who can provide a varied range of products for their vehicles and be more involved in the development cycle. The need for high speed also gave birth to the trend of auto component makers aiming to become Tier 0.5 suppliers.

Tier I suppliers deliver full systems or modules based on automaker specifications, while Tier IIs supply smaller parts to Tier Is. The emerging Tier 0.5 suppliers go a step further, integrating themselves into the development and design phase. While the country's largest auto component maker, Samvardhana Motherson International Ltd, is already a Tier 0.5 supplier, companies like Tata AutoComp Systems Ltd, Lumax and Belrise Industries Ltd have also expressed their desire to achieve the tag.

Natarajan Sankar, managing director at BCG, said that OEMs and component players in India have made significant progress over the past few years in accelerating the product development cycle.

“As Indian automakers started gaining scale, traditional product development cycles were under scrutiny. Indian companies started thinking about how to be significantly faster in product development, and they have moved well on this journey," Sankar said.

Sankar added that component makers mainly keep pace with the developments by investing in research and development capabilities and capacity build-up, along with working closely with OEMs on product development.

The race to develop faster products also coincides with a period when the top four carmakers in India, Maruti, Mahindra, Hyundai, and Tata Motors, are set to launch more than two dozen products over the next five years, including facelifts, model upgrades, and new nameplates.