Where does India’s value actually sit?
26 industries traced end to end — and every listed Indian company placed at the stage where it really earns its money, not the sector it is filed under.
Find a company
The leader in every chain
25 chains · one row each · the top-ranked company only
The maps show where a company sits. This ranks them — on sustained growth, return on capital and operating margin against that chain’s own median, with debt as a hard gate. One row per chain below, the leader only. “Sustained growth” is the lower of the 3-year and 5-year sales CAGR; “return” is return on capital, or return on equity for lenders and fee businesses. The last column flags where the company’s most recent quarter points the other way from the trailing screen — read those rows first. Nothing is padded: a chain that clears no gate is left out rather than filled.
| Value chain | Leader on this screen | NSE | Sustained growth | Return | Op. margin | D/E | M-cap ₹Cr | Latest quarter |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI | Netweb Technologies | NETWEB | 69.9% | 37.5% | 13.8% | 0.16 | ₹24,175 | — |
| Automotive | Cholamandalam Investment & Finance | CHOLAFIN | 26.6% | 19.4% | 69.2% | 6.72 | ₹137,948 | — |
| Cement | Star Cement | STARCEMENT | 11.8% | 16.6% | 23.7% | 0.19 | ₹6,960 | — |
| Crop Inputs | Krishana Phoschem | KRISHANA | 66.7% | 27.2% | 12.6% | 1.31 | ₹7,238 | — |
| Dairy | Nestlé India | NESTLEIND | 11.1% | 84.1% | 23.9% | 0.08 | ₹227,474 | — |
| Defence | Garden Reach Shipbuilders | GRSE | 39.8% | 42.8% | 11.1% | 0.01 | ₹22,683 | — |
| Electronics & EMS | Netweb Technologies | NETWEB | 69.9% | 37.5% | 13.8% | 0.16 | ₹24,175 | — |
| FMCG | Trent | TRENT | 34.5% | 28.3% | 18.9% | 0.30 | ₹160,586 | growth decelerating |
| Financial Services | Multi Commodity Exchange | MCX | 42.6% | 56.3% | 72.0% | 0.00 | ₹81,773 | −21% QoQ |
| Healthcare Delivery | Vijaya Diagnostic Centre | VIJAYA | 16.7% | 20.5% | 42.2% | 0.44 | ₹15,022 | — |
| IT Stack | Inventurus Knowledge Solutions | IKS | 42.0% | 31.5% | 33.9% | 0.27 | ₹29,453 | — |
| Infrastructure | Polycab India | POLYCAB | 26.9% | 33.2% | 13.5% | 0.02 | ₹117,872 | — |
| Logistics | Gujarat Pipavav Port | GPPL | 8.1% | 28.1% | 62.5% | 0.02 | ₹7,803 | — |
| Metal Recycling | HBL Engineering | HBLENGINE | 29.4% | 59.3% | 32.0% | 0.03 | ₹22,468 | Q1 FY27 profit −24% |
| Metals | Hindustan Copper | HINDCOPPER | 11.5% | 42.4% | 50.2% | 0.03 | ₹39,140 | — |
| Oil & Gas | Deep Industries | DEEPINDS | 35.7% | 16.5% | 39.4% | 0.10 | ₹4,284 | — |
| Pharmaceutical | Vijaya Diagnostic Centre | VIJAYA | 16.7% | 20.5% | 42.2% | 0.44 | ₹15,022 | — |
| Power | Emmvee Photovoltaic | EMMVEE | 64.1% | 44.6% | 34.7% | 0.25 | ₹16,031 | listed Nov 2025 |
| QSR & Food Service | Varun Beverages | VBL | 18.1% | 19.7% | 22.8% | 0.13 | ₹134,573 | — |
| Indian Railways | HBL Engineering | HBLENGINE | 29.4% | 59.3% | 32.0% | 0.03 | ₹22,468 | Q1 FY27 profit −24% |
| Real Estate | Aptus Value Housing Finance | APTUS | 26.1% | 20.1% | 82.4% | 1.56 | ₹10,224 | — |
| Sugar | Nestlé India | NESTLEIND | 11.1% | 84.1% | 23.9% | 0.08 | ₹227,474 | — |
| Telecom | TCS | TCS | 5.8% | 63.0% | 26.4% | 0.10 | ₹919,790 | — |
| Textiles & Apparel | Trent | TRENT | 34.5% | 28.3% | 18.9% | 0.30 | ₹160,586 | growth decelerating |
| Travel Economy | BLS International Services | BLS | 25.5% | 29.8% | 27.3% | 0.17 | ₹9,029 | — |
Growth is the lower of the three- and five-year sales CAGR throughout, the same rule the maps use. Not investment advice — this is screen output on trailing figures, and price is not in the screen.
Explore India’s economy
Industries · value chains · ecosystems
Each bar is one stage, its height the median return on capital of the companies at that stage; the tallest is the stage of that chain where the money actually is. Peak is that stage’s figure, median the chain’s. The pair on the right is stages and listed companies mapped.
The map, not the list
Worked example · Power
Power — five of 11 stages
- Coal India35% RoCE
- Adani Green Energy7% RoCE
- GAIL (India)10% RoCE
- Adani Power17% RoCE
- NTPC9% RoCE
- Adani Green Energy7% RoCE
- ABB India30% RoCE
- CG Power & Industrial Solutions27% RoCE
- Hitachi Energy India29% RoCE
- Adani Energy Solutions10% RoCE
- Polycab India33% RoCE
- Tata Power11% RoCE
- Tata Power11% RoCE
- Waaree Energies38% RoCE
- Havells India25% RoCE
The largest listed companies at each stage by market capitalisation, with their return on capital. Most profitable in the chain: GE Vernova T&D India at 77.4% on capital, at stage 7. The full map carries 152 entries across 11 stages — open it.
What is changing
Cross-industry signals · each opens the stage it is about
Value is moving downstream.
Agriculture takes about 80% of the freshwater and pays least for it. The listed money is not at the source — it is where a regulator compels someone to pay: industrial zero-liquid-discharge, and the municipal order books Jal Jeevan and AMRUT created.
The power layer matters more than the model layer.
Twelve layers stand between land and an AI application, and no Indian company designs or fabricates AI-class silicon. What India does own is the electricity, the construction and the cooling — which is why this reads as an infrastructure chain wearing a software name.
The customer is not always investable.
The chain begins at a stage with no company in it. About 75% of capital acquisition is reserved for Indian sources, so an order book here reflects policy as much as capability — and export revenue is the honest test of which is which.
The cascade that made the margins is being dismantled.
FMCG posts the highest returns on capital in this folder on plants the brand owners largely do not own. That depended on a distribution cascade — and quick commerce is now taking it apart from the far end.
Ask, screen, and rank
Three ways in
Value chain screener
Screen stages the way you screen companies. Median growth and return on capital for all 243 stages, so you can ask which part of an industry is compounding — then screen the 889 companies underneath. Type a number; there are no sliders to guess at.
Best positioned
Not the fastest — the best placed. 86 companies, three or four in every chain, argued one by one on how defensible the position actually is rather than on what the figures did last year. Every pick carries the case against it beside the case for it.
Ask the maps
A question in plain English. Numbers come back as a table built from the site’s own figures; questions about how an industry works are answered from the written analysis, with a link to the stage it came from.
Not investment advice. These maps are an analytical reference, not a recommendation to buy or sell anything. Figures are point-in-time snapshots from public sources, not a live feed, and may be stale or wrong. Verify independently before acting on any of it.