Summary
- India’s engineering exports hit a record $122.43 billion in FY 2025-26, up from $116.67 billion a year earlier, with automobiles the largest segment at 21.9% (PIB).
- Auto components alone exported $22.9 billion in FY25, and North America (32%) and Europe (29.5%) took most of it (ACMA).
- Overseas technical buyers do 62% of their research online before contact, and 70% lean towards the better-known brand when solutions are similar (TREW and GlobalSpec).
- The fix isn’t a bigger trade-show budget. It’s export-grade evidence: capability pages in precise English, current certifications, and visibility for the processes buyers specify.
Written for: MDs, CEOs and business-development heads of Pune manufacturers with ₹50 crore to ₹500 crore in revenue who want more export business, or less dependence on two or three domestic OEMs.
Why is this the moment for Pune’s exporters?
Because the demand is there, and still growing. India’s engineering exports reached a record $122.43 billion in FY 2025-26, up from $116.67 billion in FY 2024-25 and $109.3 billion the year before. Automobiles were the largest segment at 21.9%, followed by industrial machinery at 18%. ACMA reported auto component exports of $22.9 billion in FY25, with North America taking 32% and Europe 29.5%.
- Engineering exports, $ billion
Source: Press Information Bureau
Pune sits at the centre of it. iFOREST’s 2025 study of Maharashtra’s auto sector counted 4,249 automobile and component manufacturing units in Pune district, employing 54% of the state’s formal auto workforce. It also found that a quarter of Pune’s component makers will be highly or moderately affected by the shift to electric vehicles. For those companies, finding new buyers is a strategic necessity, not a sales target.
How do overseas buyers find a supplier they’ve never met?
Mostly by researching alone, in English, before anyone emails you. TREW Marketing and GlobalSpec’s 2026 research found engineers spend 62% of their buying journey researching online, that technical publications and vendor websites are their top sources of product information, and that 70% are more likely to choose the better-known brand when solutions are technically similar. They rated AI-generated answers only 4.7 out of 10 for trustworthiness, so they check what they find.
For a buyer in Stuttgart or Detroit, “better known” doesn’t mean famous. It means findable and verifiable: a supplier whose capabilities appear when they search for a process, whose website answers the audit questions, and whose name comes up consistently in directories, trade publications and AI answers.
Source: ACMA
What do export buyers check that domestic OEMs don’t?
Everything your long-standing domestic customers already know from years of plant visits. An overseas buyer has to find it on a screen.
| The buyer’s question | What a domestic OEM already knows | What an export buyer needs to find |
|---|---|---|
| Can you make it? | Your plant, from years of visits | Processes, tolerances, materials and capacity, stated precisely |
| Will you pass our audit? | Your quality history | Current certifications such as IATF 16949 and ISO 9001, with dates, and your quality systems |
| Can you ship reliably? | Your delivery record | Export experience, markets served, lead times and logistics arrangements |
| Will you still be here in five years? | Your founder | Company history, ownership, scale and named leadership |
| Can we work with you easily? | Your sales head’s mobile number | A named export contact, time-zone cover and fast, precise replies in English |
What should a Pune manufacturer fix first?
1. Reposition around processes, not part numbers
Export buyers search by process and problem: high-pressure die casting, precision machining of aluminium housings, lightweighting. Describe what you can do in the language their engineers specify, and you become findable by buyers who have never heard of you. Our EV and auto components and industrial manufacturing pages go deeper on each sector.
2. Publish export-grade evidence
Certifications with dates, audit history, capacity, materials, export markets served and named contacts, on proper web pages rather than in a brochure PDF. It’s what procurement checks first, and it’s what AI assistants can actually read.
3. Build search and AI visibility for the processes you want to sell
Capability pages and technical content around the specifications buyers search for, plus consistent listings in the directories and publications they trust. Our piece on AI search explains why being named in the answer now matters as much as ranking, and our procurement-test piece covers what the website itself must carry.
4. Make the first reply as good as the plant
An overseas enquiry answered within two days, in precise technical English, with a clear next step, beats a perfect quotation that arrives in two weeks. Treat response time as part of the product.
What does an export-grade capability page contain?
Everything an engineer abroad needs to decide whether to send you a drawing. One page per process or capability, not one page for the whole company. Here is the anatomy we recommend.
| Section | What to include | Why the buyer needs it |
|---|---|---|
| Headline | The process and material in plain words: “High-pressure aluminium die casting, 250 to 1,600 tonnes” | It matches how engineers search and specify |
| Specifications | Tolerances, part size and weight ranges, annual volumes, secondary operations | It answers “can you make it?” before anyone asks |
| Equipment and capacity | Key machines, cells and current capacity headroom | It shows you can take on a new programme |
| Quality | Certifications with validity dates, inspection methods, PPAP or first-article experience | It pre-empts the audit questions |
| Evidence | Sectors and programmes supplied, export markets served, anonymised examples if names are confidential | It proves you’ve done it for someone like them |
| People | A named engineer or export manager, with a direct route to them | Buyers want to talk to someone who knows the process |
For an export buyer, your website is the plant visit they haven’t booked yet.
Questions to take into your next leadership meeting
- If an engineer in Europe searched for our main process today, would they find us, or a competitor from another country?
- Are our certifications, capacity and export experience on web pages, or buried in PDFs?
- What share of our revenue comes from our top three customers, and what’s our plan to reduce it?
- How quickly, and in what quality of English, do we answer overseas enquiries?
- Which directories, publications and AI assistants mention us, and what do they say?
Questions leaders ask us about this
Do we need a separate export website?
Usually not. A well-structured site with dedicated capability, sector and export pages, written in precise international English, serves both audiences. Separate country sites make sense only when you have local teams and localised offers.
Are trade shows still worth it?
Yes, for relationships and credibility, but they work better when the buyers you meet can verify you online afterwards. A strong website makes every trade-show conversation worth more.
How long before export enquiries improve?
Evidence and capability pages can be live within weeks. Search and AI visibility for competitive processes typically builds over six to twelve months of consistent publishing.
Expert verdict
Treat export visibility as capacity planning, not marketing.
The export opportunity is real and well documented. What stops capable Pune manufacturers winning more of it is rarely engineering; it’s being invisible or unverifiable to buyers who research alone. Reposition around processes, publish export-grade evidence, and build visibility for the specifications you want to be known for. Then measure qualified overseas enquiries, not website traffic.
Do now
Rewrite your five most important capability pages around the processes and tolerances export buyers specify.
Stop
Relying on trade shows and the founder’s network as the only routes to new export customers.
Measure
Qualified overseas enquiries per month, and the share of revenue from customers outside your top three.
Verdict by our Growth lead, 3Anomaly founding team
Sources
- Press Information Bureau, “India’s Engineering Exports Hit Record $122.43 Billion”, 2026
- ACMA, Auto Component Industry Performance, FY2024-25
- iFOREST, “Navigating the Shift: A Just Transition Roadmap for Maharashtra’s Automobile Sector”, 2025
- TREW Marketing and GlobalSpec, 2026 State of Marketing to Engineers (press release, March 2026)
