New Delhi, Nov. 23 -- V-Guard Industries is preparing its boldest gamble in years: a late entry into India's crowded lighting market. It's the one major space the company has long steered clear of but now sees as essential to completing its transformation from a stabilizer maker into a national electricals powerhouse.

Lighting had been the last major "white space" in V-Guard's portfolio, a gap that managing director Mithun Chittilappilly says the company could no longer ignore. The move caps a decade-long reinvention for the Kerala-headquartered firm, which once derived nearly all its revenue from stabilizers but has steadily pushed into wires, pumps, switchgear and consumer durables. Lighting, however, remained conspicuously absent, unt...