Henkel Opens Electronics Application Center in Bengaluru

Henkel has launched a Customer Application Center in Bengaluru, positioning the facility as a hub for co-developing, testing, and validating adhesive, thermal management, and coating solutions for electronics manufacturers in India. The opening marks what the company describes as one of its most significant application engineering investments in the India, Middle East, and Africa (IMEA) region.

The 5,000 sq. ft. center, roughly 2,400 sq. ft. of which is dedicated to laboratory and testing space, is built to replicate actual electronics manufacturing conditions. This allows customer engineering teams to evaluate and optimize materials and processes before committing to production scale — a step that Indian manufacturers have historically had to conduct through overseas facilities or defer entirely due to the absence of comparable local infrastructure. According to Henkel, around 60–65% of the investment went into laboratory and testing equipment, with 20–25% directed at co-development infrastructure for customer teams.

The facility targets five sectors: telecom and 5G infrastructure, data centers and AI computing, power electronics and electric vehicle systems, industrial automation, and medical electronics. Its core capabilities include advanced thermal management testing, precision dispensing systems, electrical characterization tools, and rapid-cure chambers — covering the full journey from early-stage prototyping and material validation through to production readiness.

What distinguishes the center from a conventional testing laboratory, Henkel says, is its collaboration model. Application experts from the company will work alongside customer engineering teams on-site, co-developing solutions tailored to specific device architectures and manufacturing requirements. This positions the facility less as a service offering and more as a shared development environment — one designed to reduce the time and cost associated with moving from concept to commercial scale.

S. Sunil Kumar, Country President – India at Henkel, said the center reflects the company's view that India's electronics manufacturing sector has reached a turning point. "India's electronics manufacturing ecosystem is at an inflection point, and Bengaluru is at the center of it," he said. "What manufacturers across our focus sectors increasingly need is not just world-class materials, but a local partner who can co-develop, test, and validate those materials under real production conditions, and help them move from concept to market faster. That is precisely what this center is designed to do."

The launch comes against the backdrop of rapid growth in India's electronics sector. The country's electronics manufacturing output has grown nearly six-fold over the past decade, driven by investment in data center and AI computing infrastructure, 5G and fiber network expansion, electric vehicle charging systems, industrial automation equipment, and advanced medical devices. Each of these segments depends on high-performance adhesives, thermal interface materials, and protective coatings — and each requires faster, more localized application engineering support than India's ecosystem has traditionally been able to offer.

The facility is also designed to support national manufacturing policy objectives. By bringing application engineering, process optimization, and reliability validation onshore, Henkel says the center directly advances India's Make-in-India and Production-Linked-Incentive programs. A meaningful share of development work that Indian electronics manufacturers previously routed through overseas facilities — or simply postponed — can now be completed locally, compressing development timelines and accelerating time to market.

Bengaluru was selected for its position within India's electronics ecosystem. The city's concentration of semiconductor design firms, electronics R&D centers, and engineering teams from global OEMs makes it the primary node for electronics innovation in the country. Locating the center there places Henkel's application expertise in proximity to the engineers and manufacturers most likely to use it.

The new center adds to Henkel India's existing footprint, which includes four manufacturing sites, two innovation centers, a customer experience center, a flexible packaging academy, and two other application centers serving the footwear and consumer electronics industries. The company employs over 1,300 people across these sites in India, operating through two legal entities — Henkel Adhesives Technologies India Private Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary, and Henkel Anand India Private Limited, a joint venture with the Anand Group.

Globally, Henkel was founded in 1876 and today employs approximately 47,000 people across its operations. The company reported sales of around €20.5 billion in fiscal 2025, with an adjusted operating profit of approximately €3.0 billion. Its Adhesive Technologies division holds a leading position in the global market for adhesives, sealants, and coatings. The division's best-known brand, Loctite, is used across a wide range of industrial and electronics manufacturing applications. Henkel's preferred shares are listed on the German stock index DAX.