Kajaria Ceramics is India’s largest tile company and the eighth-largest tile maker in the world - a business built on turning a low-cost building material into a branded, design-led product for Indian homes. It was founded in 1988 by Ashok Kajaria with a single one-million-square-metre plant, and over nearly four decades it transformed how Indians buy tiles: moving them from dusty hardware-shop stacks into stylish showrooms, and pioneering large-format and glazed vitrified tiles in the country. The recurring approach is to invest only in products that can ride the company’s existing brand and dealer network while earning a sustainable 20%-plus return on capital - tile remains the core, expected to stay at 85-87% of revenue even as newer segments grow faster.
Business segments
Three engines at different stages - a dominant tile cash cow, a bathware challenger building brand on the same dealer network, and an adhesives start-up just beginning to tap the parent’s distribution - plus a plywood experiment that was shut down when it failed the return test.
1. Tiles: the core factory-and-brand engine
Kajaria makes and sells roughly one in every ten tiles bought in India, running seven plants at full capacity and outsourcing the rest, while charging a premium over unbranded rivals because of a brand built over a decade and a distribution network no competitor can replicate quickly.
- Widest range in the country - the company offers about 3,500 SKUs across ceramic wall and floor tiles, polished vitrified tiles, and glazed vitrified tiles, covering every price point from budget to premium, which means a single dealer can serve an entire project from one catalogue.
- A brand premium in a commodity market - roughly ₹800 crore was spent on brand-building over ten years, using Bollywood ambassadors like Akshay Kumar and Ranveer Singh, airport advertising, and twelve consecutive Superbrand titles, so Kajaria can price above unbranded Morbi tiles while sitting below expensive imports.
- Distribution that reaches everywhere - over 1,800 direct dealers and 415 exclusive showrooms across all 36 states and union territories, with about 70% of sales going to retail homeowners and 30% to builders and architects; most new showrooms are opening in semi-urban towns where branded tiles are still a novelty.
- Morbi’s troubles are Kajaria’s tailwind - Morbi-based players face high gas prices and uncertainty over how many plants will run; when gas prices and freight costs spike, their plants close and export pressure drops, creating supply gaps in India that branded multi-plant players like Kajaria fill.
2. Bathware: the second brand on the same shelf
Sold under the Kerovit brand through the same dealer network that sells Kajaria tiles, sanitaryware and faucets give the company a second item in the same home-building basket - still small at 2% market share, but with a decade of investment behind it.
- A complementary purchase, not a new customer - the division contributed 8% of company turnover in FY25, selling 3.51 million pieces of sanitaryware and faucets, mostly to the same homeowners and builders who already buy Kajaria tiles.
- Own factories for quality control - three plants make 12 lakh pieces of sanitaryware and 16 lakh pieces of faucets annually, including a greenfield unit that opened in FY24 specifically to make high-end products that can compete with global brands on finish and design.
- Showroom-within-a-showroom - the division has 500-plus dealerships including 85 premium outlets of 1,500-2,000 square feet each, and a large display centre in Mumbai, so the brand can be presented as a distinct experience rather than an add-on shelf.
- A fraud setback, contained - in December 2025, the CFO of the bathware subsidiary was found to have embezzled an estimated ₹20 crores over two years; a police complaint was filed, the executive was terminated, and the parent moved to subscribe to preference shares of the step-down subsidiary shortly after.
3. Tile adhesives: the early-stage bolt-on
GresBond tile adhesives and grouts are sold to the same dealers who sell Kajaria tiles, but only a quarter of the dealer network has been tapped so far - the division is small today and is just now building its own factories to replace outsourced supply.
- A ₹5,000-crore market, barely addressed - the division contributed 2% of company turnover in FY25 with sales of 69,240 metric tonnes, even though the Indian tile-adhesive market is large and growing as more builders switch from sand-cement to ready-mix adhesives.
- Distribution is the ready-made advantage - as of May 2024, only 20-25% of Kajaria’s 1,800-plus tile dealers had been activated for adhesives, so growth can come simply from selling the existing product to the existing network without finding new customers.
- Masons are the gatekeepers - the division runs a mason training and loyalty programme with over 20,000 masons onboarded, because in Indian construction the mason often decides which adhesive brand to use on site.
Group structure and partners
Kajaria Ceramics is the listed parent, and it runs its businesses through a web of majority-owned subsidiaries - tiles through several manufacturing entities, bathware and adhesives through dedicated subsidiaries, and international trading through a Dubai-based investment vehicle - with a pattern of steadily buying out minority stakes over time.
- The parent operates seven Indian tile plants directly and holds controlling stakes in tile-making subsidiaries: Kajaria Vitrified (95%), Kajaria Infinity (84.59%), South Asian Ceramic Tiles (59.50%), and Kajaria Surfaces (90%, acquired in 2024 with a 6 MSM glazed vitrified tile plant in Morbi).
- The Nepal tile plant is a joint venture, Kajaria Ramesh Tiles, in which the company increased its stake from 50% to 51% in February 2025, making it a subsidiary; it operates at roughly 86% capacity and sells output within Nepal.
- Kajaria Bathware Private Limited runs the Kerovit sanitaryware and faucets business; the company held 85% and in April 2026 bought out the 15% held by a WestBridge fund for ₹50 crores, making it wholly owned.
- Kajaria Adhesive Private Limited was originally 75% owned and became wholly owned in January 2026 when the parent bought the remaining 25% from a promoter-group member for ₹25,000.
- Kajaria International DMCC, a wholly-owned subsidiary in Dubai, acts as an investment vehicle for international expansion, including a joint venture in the UAE for trading tiles; the company exited a UK joint venture during FY25.
- Kajaria Plywood Private Limited, the subsidiary that ran the loss-making plywood and laminates division, had its operations approved for discontinuation on 6 May 2025 and its ₹112.38 crore investment and loan were fully impaired.