Hello and welcome to our continuing coverage here from Davos 2026. I'm Shireen Bhan and as I've been telling you, the headlines are hot. President Trump is keeping Davos active. This is now going to be the epicenter over the next 48 hours of everything that President Trump intends to do. As I pointed out at the start, a meeting with EU leaders on Greenland. Trump not backing down at all, saying Greenland is the US's territory and the US must take claim to it. It's needed for the US security ambition, but also for the world's security ambition as well. And secondly, of course, that board of peace charter, that signing will take place here in Davos on Thursday. President Trump, of course, arrives tomorrow with a large entourage of secretaries. Outside of what Trump does or doesn't do, the focus also is on India. The India pavilion is going to be inaugurated in just a short while from now with the IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and of course Piyush Goyal and many others in attendance to talk about the outlook for 2026 where India finds its place in the global pecking order. With us is Anish Shah of the Mahindra Group. Anish, always a pleasure. Many thanks for joining us here on CNBC TV18. It's great to have you back in Davos. I know you've already had a bunch of meetings and many more to come, but what are the themes that you're picking up on? What are the conversations that your investors are having with you, your clients are having with you based on today?
Shireen, pleasure being here with you and always great to be back in Davos. The theme I've picked up so far is resilience. We've gone through a year with many challenges and across the world, the sense I've got from our conversations is a higher degree of optimism than I would have expected, and a very high level of resilience in terms of companies looking at doing what is in their control and tackling issues as they come up, and that augurs well for us.
Well, speaking of resilience, we of course have a big event coming up back home in India, the budget. What's the expectation, Anish? What is industry going into this budget hoping for? Because many of the big ticket items, GST cuts, have happened. That was not a budget item. Income tax cuts happened in the previous budget. Many other measures have been taken. So what's the hope, the ask that industry is going into this budget with?
The ask we have is stay on track. The budgets over the last few years have been very good. They were focused on infrastructure build, on capex, on longer-term structural changes, as well as on fiscal discipline, and that is good for India. So continuing on that same path is positive. As you said, we have seen a lot of positives in terms of reforms, in terms of GST, etc. And that is playing out very well for the economy. So we are seeing the economy in very good shape right now. We're seeing a very high level of demand. Our plants are full. While we've quadrupled capacity in the auto business, we still cannot meet the demand that is out there, and we're putting in more capacity as well. So on balance, we are very positive on India and the Indian economy.
Well, you said it's hard to meet demand at this point in time even though you've added capacity. So let me bring up the point about fiscal discipline as well as capital allocation. Both themes that you've been very focused on. What can we expect now for 2026, both in terms of capital deployment as well as where you intend to prioritize your investments?
So we are also staying on track. We have not just been disciplined but we also have been bold in many actions we've taken across our companies. As you saw at Invest Today and the roundtable you conducted with our leaders, all our leaders are talking about multiples of growth, not percentages of growth. And that has come from doing less, focusing on what we are good at and doing that very well. And that's exactly what we will continue to do as we go forward. We are not going to shy away from investing. We have been investing in many of our businesses that are now growing. You heard Vinod talk about aerospace structures growing literally 12 to 15 times this decade. You heard Amit talk about life spaces growing many, many multiples again. And all our leaders today are looking at significant growth that essentially complements our large businesses. So our auto team has done remarkably well. The products that you've seen and the consumer responses we've got have been just amazing. The farm team continues to deliver well, aided by very strong sentiment in rural. So the farm industry has grown, but we continue to grow market share from a high level. Our Mahindra Finance business is on a very good track, has gone through a stabilization phase, come out of it. We're now pivoting to growth there. Tech Mahindra is on a good track as well. So as we said at that point, our businesses are firing on all cylinders. So for us, it is stay on track and continue to deliver growth.
Since you're talking about cylinders, let me ask you about what's likely to happen as far as the EV-ICE mix is concerned for the auto business going forward. You just had a bunch of launches and in your words, done very well for you. What can we expect over the next few years in terms of the changes in your portfolio between ICE and EV?
We will continue to see EV grow. EV today is about 7% or so of our sales, and we expect that to grow to 20%, then 30%. The key is going to be around infrastructure. And this is where government policy of focusing on EVs has helped tremendously, because that is starting to result in infrastructure growth. The product is a wonderful product from everything our customers tell us, and it's really a wow even compared to any of the ICE vehicles. EV vehicles are lots of fun to drive, and that will result in a lot more sales for EV. Charging at home and office is sufficient for any city driving because real life range is 500 km. Our customers need to charge once a week. Charging on highways is not as easy right now. It's there, but that needs to get much better. As that does, we will see EV take off.
But with all the subsidies in place, the push being made by the center as well as many state governments, as well as companies like yours, it's still as you pointed out 7% of sales for you. So this ambition of 20 and 30% doesn't seem far-fetched today.
It's not. And I think with the path that we are on, we feel that we should be able to get there. And we just need to ensure we stay the course from a policy standpoint as well, because building charging infrastructure will take a little bit of time, and we need to allow for that time for that infrastructure.
It's also been a year where many of your businesses have seen significant investments but are now targeting significant growth plans. So what can we expect realistically? Are we likely to see any listings from the Mahindra group in 2026 or perhaps in the near term?
Not in '26, but in '27 we will look at listing our last mile mobility business, which is electric three-wheelers.
A business also that has done phenomenally well. A space where we were literally a non-player in three-wheelers, and we were the leader in electric today, have a 40 to 45% market share depending on what month of the year you look at it. Number one in that space. EV penetration in that space has gone up dramatically, so we are at about 35% EV penetration overall. Some cities are at 50, 60, 70% as well, and the large metros are at 5%. So as you get charging infrastructure to large metros, that will take off. So we've got a great business in an industry that is a very strong industry.
So IPOing the last mile mobility business in 2027. What's the rationale for that? What do you use the funds for?
For further growth in that business and for going international, because we've got a great set of products and that's something that we should be able to do.
So how aggressively are you going to tap the international markets, the export markets for the three-wheeler business?
As you know, we've always done things in phases and ensure that every phase is done well. So at this point, it is a very sharp focus on the domestic market. It is a highly competitive market and our business has done very well with that competition. And we will start looking at global plans, pick certain countries and look at becoming large players in those countries.
