Aequs is a precision manufacturer that turned a single aerospace campus into a replicable formula: co-locate every step - forging, machining, surface treatment, assembly - inside one fence so a part travels metres, not continents. Born in 2008 as a unit in India’s first Precision Engineering Special Economic Zone at Belagavi, it now operates three such clusters across Karnataka, plus plants in France and Texas, serving names like Airbus, Boeing and a global consumer-electronics giant. The recurring approach is a “platform strategy” - build a deep, qualified manufacturing ecosystem for one demanding customer set, then adapt that backbone to enter the next.
Business segments
Three engines at different stages - an aerospace cash cow built on decades of customer qualifications, a consumer-electronics platform scaling inside committed capacity, and a toys pivot that swapped one global brand for another - each grown from the same cluster playbook.
1. Aerospace: where the group’s cash and credentials come from
India’s only vertically integrated aerospace factory, on a single campus, supplying 5,654 qualified parts to the world’s most demanding OEMs under contracts that take years to win and decades to run off.
- Everything under one roof - the Belagavi SEZ houses engineering, raw material, forging, precision machining, surface treatment, assembly and finished-goods delivery, so a part that would otherwise travel 5,000 km across a global supply chain moves less than 500 metres. That is how the company claims the lowest carbon footprint per part in aerospace manufacturing.
- Qualification is the moat - each of the 5,654 SKUs represents a rigorous, multi-year approval cycle with an OEM, and once a part is qualified it tends to stay with the supplier for the life of the programme, creating a high barrier that competitors cannot easily climb. The average relationship with the top three customers is 15 years.
- Tier-1 to the primes - Aequs is a direct supplier to Airbus, Boeing, Safran, Collins Aerospace and SAAB, and holds a D2P (Detailed Parts Award) partnership with Airbus, which gives it preferential access to a pool of contracts over non-D2P rivals. It was the first company in India to assemble plug doors and over-wing exit doors for global OEMs.
- Moving up the value chain - the company is pushing into higher-complexity, higher-value products such as landing gear and engine components, supported by India’s largest aerospace hydraulic press (10,000 tonnes) and the country’s first surface-treatment unit approved by both Airbus and Boeing. A new aero-engine component ecosystem is planned on a 250-acre site in Tamil Nadu, with Aequs and partners proposing to invest up to INR 1,900 crore over ten years.
2. Consumer electronics: a second platform built on committed capacity
The company builds factory capacity only after a global brand commits to filling it - so the risk is not demand but how fast Aequs can scale.
- Capacity built to order - there is no traditional order book; instead, the customer projects its demand and Aequs builds machining and moulding capacity to match, with the installed base fully committed by the customer. The constraint is the company’s own ability to ramp up quickly enough.
- First parts already shipping - Aequs was the first firm to qualify and ship two mechanical enclosures for two product lines to the largest global consumer-electronics player by revenue, and it is now scaling mass-production shipments of components for PCs and smart devices.
- Utilisation is the near-term story - consumer-segment capacity utilisation stood at 23% at the end of FY26, with a target of 40-50% by end-FY27, meaning a large portion of the fixed-cost base has yet to earn its keep. The business received approval for PLI incentives under the government’s electronic-component manufacturing scheme during FY26.
- A dedicated cluster in Hubballi - the consumer-durables ecosystem occupies over 800,000 sq. ft. across two Karnataka clusters, with 1.57 million machining hours of annualised capacity and nearly 300,000 sq. ft. of manufacturing space available to support growth.
3. Toys: a pivot from one global brand to another
When Hasbro changed its sourcing strategy, Aequs replaced it with a long-term agreement with Mattel - same cluster, same moulding machines, different customer.
- Hasbro exit, Mattel entry - Hasbro informed Aequs it would stop raising purchase orders, but the company had already signed a long-term agreement with Mattel, with shipments having started in Q3 and both sides committed to scaling volumes.
- Plastics, not metals - the toys business uses moulding machines for plastics, distinct from the CNC machines that serve aerospace and consumer electronics, so the two consumer-facing segments do not compete for the same equipment.
- India’s first toys cluster - the Koppal facility was operationalised in 2021 as the country’s first dedicated toys manufacturing cluster, giving Aequs a head start in an industry the government is keen to domesticate.
Group structure and partners
A listed holding company with three wholly owned subsidiaries slated for amalgamation, plus a set of joint ventures that extend its manufacturing reach into surface treatment, forging, cookware and unmanned aerial vehicles.
- Simplification underway - the board has approved a scheme to merge three wholly owned subsidiaries - AeroStructures Manufacturing India, Aequs Engineered Plastics, and Aequs Force Consumer Products - into Aequs Ltd, with no share exchange because the parent’s equity in them will be cancelled.
- Joint ventures fill capability gaps - a 50:50 JV with Magellan Aerospace (API) runs the surface-treatment plant approved by both Airbus and Boeing; a 50:50 JV with Aubert & Duval (SQuAD) operates India’s largest aerospace forging press; and a 50:50 JV with Brazil’s Tramontina makes premium cookware, marking Tramontina’s first JV outside its home market.
- A bet on drones - in January 2026, Aequs formed an equal JV with Accel India and Vagus Defence to manufacture UAVs end-to-end, targeting India’s roughly USD 16.5 billion domestic defence-acquisition pool with a plan to build indigenous subsystems for vision, communication, flight computing and autonomy by FY30+.
- International footprint - manufacturing operations in Cholet, France, and Paris, Texas, provide proximity to key aerospace customers, while the French step-down subsidiary (in which Aequs holds an effective 100% stake) serves the civil and military aeronautics market.