The feel-good factory

Summary: SJS Enterprises is benefiting from India's growing appetite for more premium vehicles and features, backed by a sticky business model and multiple growth levers. But the story also asks whether the market's enthusiasm has already pushed the stock price too far ahead of the business.

Summary: SJS Enterprises is benefiting from India's growing appetite for more premium vehicles and features, backed by a sticky business model and multiple growth levers. But the story also asks whether the market's enthusiasm has already pushed the stock price too far ahead of the business. Sit inside a new Creta, a Seltos or a Mahindra XUV700, and run a finger along the dashboard. The speedometer print, the chrome trim on the AC vents, the badge on the steering wheel, the logo that lights up when the door opens: none of it makes the car move faster or use less fuel. All of it makes the car feel like it costs more than it does. That feeling has a name in the industry: premiumisation, the steady climb in how much buyers expect for the same money. Somebody has to design, print and mould the parts that create it. Increasingly, in India, that somebody is SJS Enterprises. SJS calls itself a decorative aesthetics company, a category most readers will not recognise by name even though they touch its products daily. The Bengaluru-based firm makes decals, dials, badges, overlays, chrome-plated parts and optical plastics across 14 product categories, sold mainly to two-wheeler and passenger vehicle makers, with a growing consumer appliances business alongside.