Birla built India with cement, now it wants to wire up what powers it with a ₹1,800 crore bet

Aditya Birla Group’s ₹1,800 crore wires and cables bet is moving from blueprint to rollout, as the conglomerate looks to tap a market being reshaped by India’s construction and electrification needs and a steady shift towards organised players.

The group on Thursday launched Ultravolt, its wires and cables business housed under UltraTech Cement. The business is entering the wires segment as India’s second-largest player by capacity and aims to become one of the top two players in the segment within five years.

Also Read: Aditya Birla Group launches Ultravolt with Rs 1,800 crore bet, debuts as India’s No. 2 wires player by capacity


The launch comes seven months after Birla announced its entry into the sector. Within weeks of that announcement, the Adani Group also moved into cables and wires, with Kutch Copper, a wholly owned subsidiary of Adani Enterprises, incorporating a joint venture with Praneetha Ventures.

The moves by two large conglomerates point to the growing strategic interest in a sector that has traditionally been dominated by smaller and unorganised players, while also offering exposure to India's construction, infrastructure and electrification cycle.

For Birla, however, the rationale for entering wires and cables goes back to its effort to expand beyond cement and participate more broadly in the construction value chain.

UltraTech already has businesses spanning grey cement, ready-mix concrete, building products and white cement. The wider Aditya Birla Group has also entered paints and other building products through Birla Opus.

Wires and cables add another category to that construction ecosystem.

Also Read: Kumar Mangalam Birla sees room to build a ‘new large challenger’ in India’s ₹90,000-crore wires and cables market with new ‘Ultravoult’

“Wires and cables are becoming central to India's next phase of development. They sit at the intersection of three mega trends in the Indian economy, urbanization, electrification and digitization,” Aditya Birla Group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla said.

Birla said more than 100 million new homes over the next decade, expanding energy infrastructure and the growth of data centres are expected to drive the wires and cables market.

Why the sector is attracting big groups

The wires and cables industry has several characteristics that make it attractive to a new large player.

The market remains fragmented. When Birla announced its entry last year, JM Financial noted that no single player commanded more than 15% share in wires or 20% in cables, while the industry comprised nearly 400 players ranging from SMEs to large enterprises.

“This is an industry where no single player commands more than 15% share in wires and 20% in cables. The industry comprises nearly 400 players, ranging from SMEs to large enterprises, with revenue between INR 500mn and INR 4bn. The industry is, therefore, ideal for a new entrant with deep pockets,” JM Financial’s Gaurav Jogani had said then.

At the same time, the market is becoming more organised. Nuvama Research had estimated that the organised segment's market share increased from 68% in FY19 to around 73% in FY24, with the shift expected to continue.

The industry had also recorded around 13% revenue CAGR between FY19 and FY24, according to the Nuvama estimates cited earlier. Domestic demand has been supported by rapid electrification, infrastructure development and growth in power transmission and distribution, real estate and transportation.

Motilal Oswal had estimated that domestic demand for cables and wires could grow at an 11-13% CAGR between FY24 and FY27.

That combination of industry growth, fragmentation and increasing formalisation helps explain why the sector has begun attracting deep-pocketed entrants.

Birla's advantage is the construction network

The choice of UltraTech as the home for Ultravolt is central to the strategy.

The company plans to reach more than one lakh retailers and expand availability through over 5,000 UltraTech Building Solutions outlets. Its initial rollout will cover more than 500 districts and 6,000 pin codes.

Ultravolt also has a network of more than 20 warehouses and plans to leverage UltraTech's relationships with individual home builders, contractors, real-estate developers and EPC companies, along with its pan-India distribution footprint.

The business is anchored by a new manufacturing facility at Jhagadia in Gujarat's Bharuch district, which is expected to support distribution and logistics operations across India.

Ultravolt will initially offer home wires, flexible wires and cables for residential, commercial, industrial and infrastructure applications. It plans to expand into a broader range of electrical accessories over time.

This gives UltraTech another way to participate in the spending around home building, infrastructure and electrification rather than limiting its role to cement and other core construction materials.

The Birla strategy is about building around existing businesses

The wires business is the latest example of the group's push to create new businesses around its existing capabilities and customer base.

Birla Opus expanded the group into paints and related building products, while Ultravolt now takes the group into electrical products.

“Successful new business creation has itself become a core part of the Group’s DNA and an important source of differentiation for the group. I increasingly see the Aditya Birla Group as providing the platform and engine for new bets,” he added.

Ultravolt is the Aditya Birla Group's fourth new business foray in three years.

There is also a potential raw-material connection through Hindalco's copper and aluminium businesses. Copper is a key raw material for wires and cables, although volatility in copper prices has been a longstanding challenge for the sector.

The opportunity comes with more capacity too

The growth opportunity is accompanied by a capacity build-up across the industry.

Nuvama Research had estimated that the cables and wires industry was heading towards a balanced demand-supply scenario over the following three to four years based on publicly announced capex by leading players and a 13% CAGR in industry revenue.

Capacity utilisation in the third year was estimated at around 60-70%, with the additional capacity expected to account for less than 5% of the total cables and wires market by that time.

The industry also has significant export potential, according to Nuvama, while the shift towards organised players is expected to continue.

For Birla, the September launch therefore comes at a point when the sector combines several characteristics the group is looking for: a growing market, a fragmented competitive structure, rising organised-market share and demand linked to construction, infrastructure and electrification.

Adani's entry within weeks of Birla's announcement adds to the evidence of the sector's appeal to large conglomerates. But for Birla, the immediate objective is more specific: use UltraTech's construction relationships, distribution network and manufacturing base to build a national wires and cables brand.

The group plans to reach more than one lakh retailers and become one of the top two players in the segment within five years.