Safari Industries is India’s largest luggage brand by revenue, but it wasn’t always a manufacturer - it was a trading business until 2012, when Sudhir Jatia acquired it and began a deliberate pivot toward making things in-house. Over the next decade, the company built its own factories for hard luggage, then went a step further and started producing its own wheels, progressively replacing imports with local production to control costs and secure supply. The recurring approach that explains everything else is a frugal, fast-moving “linear structure” - few layers of decision-making, relentless value engineering, and a willingness to invest aggressively in manufacturing and distribution ahead of demand.
Business segments
A single engine - branded luggage, backpacks and travel accessories - designed, manufactured and sold through every retail channel that matters in India, with early export steps and a growing in-house component capability underneath it.
1. Branded luggage and backpacks: India’s number-one luggage brand by revenue
Safari sells hard and soft luggage, backpacks and travel accessories under multiple sub-brands through over 8,500 touchpoints, with hard luggage - now 74% of turnover - driving the business as Indian consumers shift decisively from soft to hard cases.
- Hard luggage leads the mix - hard luggage made of polypropylene (PP) and polycarbonate (PC) contributed 74% of total turnover in FY25, reflecting a structural industry shift from soft to hard luggage that has turned the category from import-dependent to locally manufactured.
- An umbrella brand with sub-brands for every pocket - the flagship Safari brand sits above Safari Select (mid-premium), Genie (women and teenage girls), Genius (toddlers and kids), Urban Jungle (youth-focused casual premium), and Magnum (mass-market value), so every major consumer segment gets a relevant offer.
- Every channel, including quick-commerce - the company sells through general trade, modern trade, e-commerce resellers like Amazon and Flipkart, quick-commerce platforms like Zepto and Blinkit, canteen stores for the armed forces, its own exclusive stores in high-footfall locations, B2B bulk orders, and direct-to-consumer websites.
- Marriages and Tier-2 travel drive demand - marriages remain a large driver of luggage sales, while increasing air-travel penetration into smaller Indian cities, airline fleet expansion, and road and railway infrastructure improvement all feed underlying demand.
- Exports are tiny but targeted - the international business focuses on West Asian countries with large Indian diaspora populations, leveraging the Safari brand’s latent equity among expatriates, though exports were just 0.48% of turnover in FY25.
2. In-house manufacturing and backward integration: making the box and the wheels
Safari runs three plants across Gujarat and Rajasthan, producing hard luggage shells and - critically - its own wheels at scale, which cuts import costs, shortens supply chains and gives it production flexibility that import-dependent rivals lack.
- Three plants, two locations - the parent company operates one plant in Halol, Gujarat, while the wholly owned subsidiary Safari Manufacturing Limited (SML) runs a second Halol plant and a greenfield integrated facility in Jaipur, Rajasthan, which began commercial production in December 2024.
- Wheels made in-house at scale - SML’s wheel facility has a production capacity of 20 lakh wheels per month, enabling flexible production planning, minimising supply-chain disruptions, and reducing both import costs and associated value-chain emissions.
- Capacity built in steps, funded by a strategic investor - group hard-luggage capacity was expanded progressively from 2.5 lakh pieces per month to over 5.25 lakh pieces per month by early 2023, and the Jaipur plant was financed partly by a ₹229 crore preferential equity issue to Lighthouse India Fund IV AIF.
- Machines that do more with less - the shift from three-stage to two-stage thermoforming machines combined forming and trimming into one step, reducing cycle time, electricity consumption per unit, and plastic offcut generation, while robotic arms and automated conveyors now move shells between injection moulding and finishing stations.
- Value engineering as a reflex - the company has replaced imported PVC logos with local ABS material, developed Indian suppliers for interior lining previously sourced from China, reduced zipper widths, eliminated unnecessary brackets and fasteners, and launched a PP luggage range as a lower-cost alternative to PC, all to shave cost without visible quality loss.
Group structure and partners
Safari Industries is the listed parent, with two wholly owned subsidiaries - one for manufacturing and one with limited operations - and has brought in private-equity capital at key moments to fund its factory build-out.
- Safari Manufacturing Limited (SML), incorporated in November 2021, is the manufacturing engine - it runs the newer Halol plant and the Jaipur greenfield plant, and produces wheels and other components in-house.
- Safari Lifestyles Limited (SLL) is a 100% subsidiary with limited disclosed operations.
- Investcorp Private Equity Fund II invested ₹75 crore via compulsorily convertible debentures in March 2021, which converted to equity in August 2022, and was granted a board seat and special rights during its investment period.
- In February 2026, Safari signed a 20-year licensing agreement with Carlton Retail Private Ltd for the ‘CARLTON’ brand in India, with a refundable security deposit of ₹99.50 crore payable in tranches and annual license fees of ₹45 lakh or 5% of net sales, whichever is higher.