Growing all over the world Meta System

GROWING ALL OVER THE WORLD

Industry Europe talks to Mr Simonazzi, MD of Meta System SpA, to ask about the changes which have taken place over the last couple of years and what developments can be foreseen across the company’s horizon. Barbara Rossi reports.

Meta System’s setup was established in Reggio Emilia in 1973. The company is still headquartered in the town, where it has several facilities, alongside a functional plant in Mornago (Varese, northern Italy) as well as in Shenzhen (China). Mr Simonazzi said, “We have just signed a letter of intent with Deren, a Chinese group, for the sale of 60 per cent of our shares. In this way, Shenzhen-based Deren will become Meta System’s majority shareholder. Deren, whose most recent turnover was 500 million dollars, operates in various sectors. Its core business is automotive and consumer cabling. The rationale behind this agreement is that Deren wants to develop and expand its offerings in the automotive sector while Meta System intend on growing in the Chinese automotive market, where demand for new vehicles is more than double what we have here, in Europe. Deren will take care of the Chinese market, manufacturing within China, while we will continue to serve other markets, developing new technology for the whole company along the way. This agreement will allow us, the Italian arm of Meta System, to become even stronger.”

In 2014, Meta System achieved a €147 million turnover. The company employs 630 permanent staff, in addition to which there are another 80 contract workers. Its core products are safety and security solutions for the automotive OEM market, as well as for the after-market and OES segment. Furthermore, the company offers power electronics solutions for electric and hybrid vehicles, a sector which is growing quite rapidly. Telematics solutions for the automotive and domestic insurance industry are also part of its range.

Dramatic growth by 2020

“The annual rate of growth of our historical products, safety and security solutions for cars and motorcycles, for instance parking sensors and alarms, is 10 per cent. We are investing a lot in our power electronics range, which includes on-board battery chargers and power converters.

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So far the production in this particular area is not quite vast volumetrically, but with more than 100 per cent increase in its intensity each year we project these volumes turning momentous by 2020, mainly in view of a number of new electric and hybrid vehicle platforms which will be developed over the course of next few years. The significance of this sector is also owing to the high value of each product, which is much higher than that of other products in our range.”

The Telematics portfolio is associated with the domestic and automotive insurance world. “We offer black boxes, which insurance companies supply to customers as part of their policies. We are TTPs (Telematics technology providers) direct suppliers to insurance companies, but we also serve TPS (Telematics service providers), which then supply insurance companies.”

With regard to Telematics solutions, Meta System ranks first in Europe. Further growth is expected, with a particularly strong trend towards non-European markets. Home Telematics, which is a relatively new sector, is also showing strong signs of growth. Demand for it started in Italy, but now requests are also coming from abroad. “Domestic Telematics solutions is a niche market, but things have moved quite rapidly over a period of just a few months. In this field, we are more than merely being the product providers. We are the complete system suppliers.’’

“Another area which is growing strongly is that of low power modules for automotive acclimatisation systems. For these products we are TIER2 suppliers, as we provide our products to the system suppliers serving automotive manufacturers. Swift growth in this field is a consequence of a number of factors. Initially, and mainly because acclimatisation systems had replaced air conditioning only in high-range car models, now they have also been adopted for mid-range models, meaning their demand has moved leaps ahead while each acclimatisation system requires up to four of our low power modules.”

During the last couple of years, Meta System has strengthened and upgraded its production sites, especially with regard to manufacturing its power range. One of the Reggio Emilia factories is now equipped with a thoroughly computerised and integrated warehouse, which is larger than the production area of the same facility itself. “We plan to be working round the clock (24/7) over three shifts by the end of 2018.”

The company invests regularly in new product development. Other important investments have been made in product testing and homologation laboratories as well.

Geographically, Meta System has a very strong presence in Europe. Thanks to its deal with Deren, it expects to enter the Chinese, as well as the Indonesian and Malaysian markets (although Meta System already has a production site in Shenzhen, so far the manufacturing there has been limited to European markets only). Other global markets where growth is expected are South America and Russia, where, although the company has already been present, (especially with automotive products) now expect it to introduce other product families as well. Growth linked to Telematics products is forecasted, particularly in Russia, because of the ERA-Glonass 2015–2018 project, which requires all the vehicles circulating in Russia to be provided with crash sensors and satellite positioning receivers progressively, to provide rapid assistance to motorists in the event of a collision. While talking about growth in the American continent, Mr Simonazzi continued, “South America is an area where we intend to develop and which can be important for some product families, while being fully aware of the fact that it can be a difficult market at the same time.

“Thinking of turnover, our industrial plan target for 2020 is to achieve €400 million (250 million generated by Italian-based Meta System and the remainder by China-based Meta System Deren). Acquisitions do not feature on our horizon at the moment, but we keep a watchful eye on the market and could change our minds should the right opportunity arise. We will continuously focus on production automation along with new design systems and technologies in order to remain ahead in an ever-increasingly competitive world.” n