An analysis by management consultants sees Asian suppliers on the upswing. In Germany, the decline in sales is causing problems.
According to a study by the management consultancy PwC, Asian auto suppliers were able to increase their global market share significantly to 43 percent last year.
At the German suppliers, the decline in sales has consumed important equity reserves that are urgently needed for the transformation, said industry expert Henning Rennert. Here, “rationalization is now the order of the day in order to optimize processes, reduce costs and be able to survive the transformational change”.
According to PwC Strategy &, the sales of the 80 world’s largest auto suppliers fell by 12 percent to 783 billion euros in the crisis year 2020, while those of Germany fell by 11 percent to 199 billion euros. The world market share of Robert Bosch, Continental, ZF Friedrichshafen and Co. is still high at 26 percent, but competition with competitors in Asia is getting tougher. During the crisis, they would have achieved the highest profitability with 4.4 percent operating profit from sales and kept their equity ratio at 48 percent. For German suppliers it fell to 21 percent.
Drivetrain suppliers in particular have invested heavily in new products. On average, German suppliers invest 6.1 percent of their sales in research and development – far more than their competitors in the rest of Europe (4.8 percent), America (3.6 percent) and Asia (3.8 percent).
European and German suppliers have lost sight of their competitive cost structure for a decade, said Rennert, the author of the study. That could “become an expensive mortgage in global competition”.
The latest takeover only became known on the supplier market at the weekend: Hella, based in Lippstadt, which has been up for sale for a few months, is going to French competitor Faurecia. The acquisition is expected to be completed in early 2022. Faurecia does not want to give a job guarantee as part of the billion-dollar takeover – but there are also no concrete plans for job cuts, according to the company. «We are growing very strongly. We’ll have to hire people, ”said Faurecia boss Patrick Koller.
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
