Mark Exhaust to expand its Xtralife product portfolio

Mark Exhaust Systems (MESL), a major supplier of exhaust system components including pipes, mufflers and end-cans to key automotive players in the Indian market such as Maruti Suzuki, Suzuki Motorcycle, and Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India, is looking at speedy growth in the automotive aftermarket with its ‘Mark Xtralife’ brand. The Gurgaon-based Tier 1 supplier has its two-year old aftermarket arm retailing shock absorbers, gas springs, trailing arms and stabiliser joints.

Launched in 2017, Mark Xtralife today boasts a portfolio of suspension components such as ITR, OTR, SBJ, controller arms, boot lifters and stabiliser joints. The company says that it has observed a decent response for its aftermarket business over these two years and is growing steadily.

“Stabiliser joints and controller arms remain our high consumption items for passenger vehicles,” says Brij Malhotra, senior vice-president, MESL.

Mark Xtralife came to life from MESL's 2014 acquisition of BWI Shock Absorbers, a Chinese player, which once acquired the original suspension business of Delphi. The company is now looking to expand beyond suspension components and bring another acquired technology to the Xtralife portfolio.

“We are working our way to enter into the space of water pumps for the aftermarket, in the high-volume mass-market segment and offer our products for both petrol and diesel engines between 1-1.25-litre engine capacity,” Malhotra added. Product launch plans are end-2019.

MESL's acquisition of Quinton Hazell of the UK enables it to bring the water pumps into India. The entire design and development is being done abroad. MESL is already supplying oil pumps to Maruti Suzuki for its 1.2-litre K12 petrol motor and is looking to expand from the current 100,000 units to 400,000 units by 2020, which would also need it to infuse Rs 20 crore of capex.

Making investments into the powertrain arena at this juncture could be termed risky, but according to Malhotra, “I think electrics would only form a certain portion of total car production. We see these products to keep growing at least until 2030.”

Being a primary player in the emissions space, MESL, however, isn't seeing its hands being full on BS VI development as the company procures the catalysts from the vendors nominated by its OE customers, and rather is working on the cold-end of the exhaust system. “The major work to be done is on the catalytic converters and we are only working on the cold-end of the exhaust systems, where there is a need to reduce the noise emitted from the exhaust,” concludes Malhotra.