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Summary: Solid fundamentals, a loyal customer base and decades of technical expertise. Now add rockets, island power plants and grid-scale energy storage to the mix. The ambition is real. So is the valuation.
Inox India makes equipment that keeps industrial gases cold. A market leader with ROCE consistently above 30 per cent and almost no debt. A solid business, but historically a slow-growing one.
That changed. Exports bumped up from Rs 268 crore in FY22 to Rs 971 crore in FY26, nearly fourfold in four years. Exports now contribute 62 per cent of revenue.
The business
Inox built its domestic dominance on cryogenic industrial gas equipment, handling extreme sub-zero temperatures needed to freeze gases like hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and natural gas into storable liquids. It holds 70 to 75 per cent of the domestic market for this equipment, per CRISIL, which still contributes 57 per cent of revenue.
Beyond that, gas infrastructure (mini-terminals, regasification systems, vehicle-mounted fuel tanks) adds another 25 per cent. The rest comes from cryogenic scientific equipment used in rockets, satellites, and nuclear fusion experiments. A small slice today, but the most complex work Inox does.
Two very different stories
INOX India’s exports have seen a turnaround in fortune since FY22
|
|
FY22 | FY23 | FY24 | FY25 | FY26 | Four-year CAGR (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total income (Rs crore) | 803 | 986 | 1,162 | 1,354 | 1,632 | 19 |
| Domestic (Rs crore) | 533 | 541 | 521 | 641 | 661 | 6 |
| Exports (Rs crore) | 270 | 445 | 641 | 713 | 971 | 38 |
Disposable cylinder shipments exceeded 2 million units in FY26, primarily destined for refrigerant customers in the US. North and Central America surged to 26 per cent of revenue, up from 14 per cent the previous year, driven by liquid cylinders, Cryoseal products, storage and regasification systems and high-purity ammonia containers for semiconductor and solar manufacturers.
LNG revenue has nearly doubled in one year to Rs 457 crore in FY26. Domestically, the case rests on the adoption of heavy vehicles. PESO's 2025 approval of LNG fuel tanks on heavy vehicles opened the door, and PNGRB estimates LNG could displace 30 to 40 per cent of diesel in heavy transport. Inox is planning a tenfold expansion in fuel tank capacity in anticipation.
The ground reality, however, has not caught up. Only around 1,500 LNG trucks run on Indian roads today, and the government's 2021 target of 1,000 retail LNG stations has yielded just 29 operational outlets as of August 2025. The more tangible near-term wins are narrower: an Rs 85 crore marine order from Cochin Shipyard and dual-fuel locomotive orders from Indian Railways.
The higher ground
Inox has moved upstream into projects that very few manufacturers anywhere can execute. In Manchester, it delivered five cryogenic tanks for Highview Power's world's first commercial-scale liquid air energy storage facility, worth Rs 93.5 crore in Phase 1. Highview is planning a Phase 2 facility in Scotland, 8-10 times larger, potentially worth Rs 750 to 900 crore.
In the Bahamas, Inox is executing a Rs 240 crore turnkey mini-LNG terminal for an island power plant. It is actively bidding for similar projects in Indonesia, the Philippines and the Andaman Islands, each estimated at around Rs 200 crore.
In Q4 FY26, Inox received a Rs 200 crore order from a leading US-based private space company for cryogenic equipment. Management expects to supply at least 50 per cent of this company's future requirements, making this a serial production rather than a one-time contract. Inox is also bidding for the cryogenic portion of ISRO's ‘Third Launch Pad’, a Rs 4,000 crore project where cryogenic equipment typically accounts for 15 to 20 per cent of the total.
What the orderbook says
Inox’s orderbook stood at Rs 1,514 crore at the end of FY26, with 63 per cent in export orders. Of that, roughly Rs 1,200 crore is executable in FY27. Nearly 75 per cent of last year's revenue is already locked in before a single new order is won. Half the backlog sits in LNG and cryo-scientific, the two higher-margin divisions.
Fresh order intake has consistently run at Rs 350 to 400 crore per quarter, with management targeting Rs 500 crore as the new baseline. The company is targeting 18 to 20 per cent revenue growth for FY27.
Where it falls short
Project-based orders have gone from 30 per cent of the mix to over 60 per cent, bringing lumpiness. Large turnkey projects bill on milestone-based payment terms, meaning Inox often funds work in progress from its own pocket. Working capital has bloated as a result. Despite net profit growing 14 per cent year on year, cash flow from operations slipped from Rs 122 crore in FY25 to Rs 117 crore in FY26.
Globally, competition comes from Linde and Chart Industries. Linde produces the gases itself, bundling supply with equipment in a way Inox cannot match. Chart Industries has been expanding aggressively into LNG infrastructure and cryogenic scientific equipment, the same two segments Inox is building on. Inox has a pricing edge, but whether that alone is sufficient as order sizes scale up remains an open question.
Where it stands
Recurring industrial gas work, steady export wins, and a well-stocked orderbook make Inox’s growth guidance credible without needing anything extraordinary to happen. The stock's re-rating reflects both what INOX has delivered and what the export pipeline promises.
The price-to-earnings multiple stands at 52 times, unusually high for an equipment manufacturer whose bigger bets are yet to convert measurably. What investors should watch is how much of this export pipeline converts within FY27 itself, and whether that pace justifies what the stock is already pricing in.
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