New Delhi: Pinnacle Industries, manufacturer of automotive interiors, seating systems and specialty vehicles, is looking to clock INR 750 crore revenue in the current fiscal year.
“With robust demand from OEMs, we have grown by about 15% year-on-year in the last two years. Now we are targeting INR 750 crore in FY24, including about INR 70 crore-80 crore from the railways segment,” Arihant Mehta, President of Pinnacle Industries, told ETAuto in an interaction. Mehta is the second-gen of the company that was incorporated in 1996.
In FY23, Pinnacle clocked INR 500 crore in the country. About 60% of its revenue comes from the seating systems & interiors business, 25%-30% from speciality vehicles and 10%-15% from the railways seating division.
The Pune-based company specialises in commercial vehicle (CV) seating systems and interior trims. Its supplier base includes Ashok Leyland, Force Motors, VE Commercial Vehicles (VECV), JBM, Olectra Greetech, JBM, Daimler India Commercial Vehicles (DICV) and Tata Motors.
While it has been in the business for about 27 years now, the company has no plans to venture into passenger vehicle (PV) seating and interiors, as “OEMs prefer to work with their existing partners and this domain requires a different approach and expertise.”
In 2021, Pinnacle forayed into the railways division and this year, the company was a supplier to Vande Bharat Express trains of the Indian Railways. Its seating systems come with cushion foam used for the seats which complies with EN45545-2 HL2 standards and is wrapped with fire-retardant cloth.
The Tier-I supplier showcased its products at the recent 15th International Railway Equipment Exhibition (IREE). Its range of new seating systems includes Economy, Executive, Tip-Up, and Folding Seats. The Economy Seats offer single-seater, two-seater, and three-seater options.
Currently, Pinnacle is utilizing its existing facility in Pithampur, Madhya Pradesh, for railway seating and interiors business. While it has no plans for a separate manufacturing facility for railways business as of now, “going forward, given the quantum of the business we will plan necessary capacity expansion.”
With a 60-acre manufacturing base spread at Pithampur industrial belt, it is leveraging the central location with three factories and sees this as an advantage that provides the ease of supplying to OEMs across the country. The plant has a daily capacity of 25,000 units.
In the seating and interiors division, Pinnacle has a market share of 30%. Major players in the market include Minda Industries (Harita Seating Systems), and Tata Autocomp.
Pinnacle used to export to countries in Europe and the Middle East, which was eventually stopped, until about six years back. Now, it is on the lookout for technological partnerships or joint ventures (JV) with companies in Europe, Turkey, and South Africa to venture into export markets by the next 2-3 years.
Mehta sees lightweighting, ventilated seats, safety and smart tech features as some of the upcoming trends which may be seen in the seating systems in the next few years. To cater to the evolving demand of the OEMs, Pinnacle is also in the works for blow-moulded seats, which provide a significant weight reduction.
“The current weight of the seats stands around 6-7 kg, but the blow-moulding seats will significantly reduce the weight to about 3-3.5 kg,” Mehta said.
In July, ETAuto reported how lightweighting is becoming an important factor for the vehicles of tomorrow.
Electric buses & LCVs
Pinnacle Industries has an electric vehicle manufacturing subsidiary EKA Mobility, which was formed under the 74:26 partnership with European conglomerate VDL Group in 2019. While Pinnacle provides interiors and seating components of the EKA electric buses, VDL Group is supposedly taking care of fixing and tooling.
The EV maker has an order book of 550 electric buses and 5,000 electric LCVs. Moving forward, Mehta said the company is planning more products for the LCV category.
