I N D I A ’ S N O . 1 M A G A Z I N E F O R A U T O M O T I V E N E W S , V I E W S & A N A LY S I S
Auto Monitor V Vol. 12 No. 05
16 - 31 March 2012
w w w.amonl ine.in
56 Pages
INTERVIEW BAJAJ AUTO TO REFRESH PRODUCT B LINE-UP L
AUTONOMICS ADDITIONAL TAXES ON DIESEL CARS & UVS MAY HELP
K Srinivas, President- Motorcycle Business, Bajaj Auto
Mitsubishi to enter small car segment Nabeel A Khan New Delhi
M
itsubishi Motors is exploring options to enter the small car segment in India. The new venture may not be with its existing Indian partner Hindustan Motors, but open to go either solo or with another partner. The Executive Officer and Corporate GM of Asia and ASEAN, Mitsubishi Motors, Masahiko Ueki said, “The small car business in India is very unavoidable.” For India Mitsubishi considers Eco-car, ASX and Active Sports crossover besides, its new global hatchback (1.2 litre petrol) slated to be launched in Thailand soon.
Continental acquires Rico stake in Indian JV
C
ontinental has acquired Rico Auto’s 50 percent stake in its Indian JV Continental Rico Hydraulic Brakes India Ltd. The JV manufactures components including calipers for front and rear axles, drum brakes, master cylinders, brake boosters and load sensing proportioning valves for hydraulic brake systems. In India, the company acquired Modi Tyres last year and is investing around Euro 50 million to ramp up the tyre business. It is also expanding the India Technical Centre as well as its facilities in Pune and Manesar.
DATA MONITOR Domestic Sales Sector
Jan-11
Jan-12
PV
231,584
252,113
8.86%
CV
61,537
69,859
13.52%
3W
47,280
45,632
-3.49%
2W
980,243
1,113,831
13.63%
TOTAL
1,320,644
1,481,435
Change
12.18%
Exports Jan-11
Jan-12
Change
PV
32,948
47,652
44.63%
CV
6,878
10,325
50.12%
3W
23,742
27,270
14.86%
2W
128,560
150,943
17.41%
TOTAL
192,128
236,190
22.93%
* Source: SIAM/ ** all sub segments considered
Pg 8
Pg 14
Rane Madras bags Volvo order
NEWS IN BRIEF
Sector
` 50
T Murrali Chennai
C
hennai headquartered Rane (Madras) Ltd (RML), part Rane group, has bagged an order from Volvo to supply hydraulic cylinders. This is the fi rst overseas business for the company after it diversified in to manufacturing hydraulic cylinders. The initial volume will be around 6,000 units per year and the company will cater to Volvo’s plants in China and Thailand besides, India. RML makes manual and hydraulic steering systems and supplies to almost all the vehicle manufacturers in the country. Speaking to Auto Monitor, President, Rane (Madras), S Parthasarathy said, “Volvo has chosen RML for the quality systems and engineering capability to understand the requirements and designing products to meet specific requirements in terms of cost, delivery and speed of development.” The hydraulic cylinder for Volvo will be manufactured at its plant in Mysore. The mother plant is in Velacherry, Chennai and other plants are located in Puducherry, Varanavasi (near Chennai) and Uttarakhand. The company is setting up a new
S Parthasarathy, President, Rane (Madras) Ltd
factory within the premises of its Mysore plant for its hydraulic business. The new plant will initially have about 30,000 sq ft of space with high levels of automation, cleanliness, interlinking poke yokes and several unique manufacturing technologies, which will make it cost competitive. The company has earmarked an investment of `18 crore to be spent in the next two years. The installed capacity will be 125,000 units per year. RML is looking at expanding its product portfolio by taking up products in the adjacent space. According to Parthasarathy, the new factory will manufacture hydrostatic units and cylinders.
“We have mapped the entire requirement of the Indian industry and our product range will cover everything,” he said. Already about 80 percent of the market requirements is in the development stage. The rest will be developed in the next six months catering to automotive, off-highway and nonautomotive segments. “Currently we are working with almost all the OEMs and the development of products are in different stages,” he said. At present, it supplies to Indo Farm, International Tractors and HMT. It is focussing on the domestic market for hydrostatic gears since it is expected to grow by eight folds in the next three years. However, it
will look beyond boundaries for hydraulic cylinders. “We have identified certain specific areas to pursue exports,” he said. The company is also looking at developing electric power steering for non-passenger car applications, where engine power is not available to drive the hydraulics. It sees significant growth in the next five years, primarily due hydraulics business. His first priority is to make RML as a `1,000 crore company by 2013-14. In 2010-11 it registered `575 crore and it hopes to close the current fiscal with about `675 crore. The exports and aftermarket account for about 15 percent each. When asked how the company plans to accomplish the objective Parthasarathy said, “There are enough programmes we are winning with various customers in both, India and abroad. Besides, hydraulic business will be a huge value addition to us. Also we have some specific strategies to grow in ball-joints.” The company has set-up a plant in Sanand, Gujarat to support Tata Motors. It will start its shipments soon for Nano. ”We are well positioned to support other customers also, who are setting up facilities there,” he said.
UNIDO to shift gears towards aerospace Bhargav TS Chennai
A
fter joining hands with the auto component manufacturers in India successfully, UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organisation) is planning to assist India’s smallscale aerospace component manufacturers soon. The programme will kick-start gradually by providing technical assistance to small component manufacturers in the aerospace sector, to meet international standards. As the global aerospace equipment manufacturers seek to expand their supplier base in India, UNIDO has taken the new initiative to reinforce the SMEs in the sector. In a recent interaction with UNIDO’s Investment Promotion expert of the Investment Promotion Unit, Asia and Latin
America, Alejandro Vera Casso said, “The global OEMs will be looking to have more sourcing to be done in India. So you have to start building up the capabilities of the domestic manufacturers, else India will not be able to fulfi l their demand.” The aerospace project is the fi rst of its kind for UNIDO, which will be funded by the UK government. Casso said, “Depending upon what the strategy says, the funding will be then decided. We are confident to do this primarily because we learnt many things about the Indian auto component industry.” In this project, UNIDO will focus on two aspects; fi rst to perform a diagnostics of the suppliers in the aerospace industry, where the diagnostics will be the benchmark tool that will be used across the European aerospace SMEs. The second aspect is
Alejandro Vera Casso
about using the information that is emerging out of the diagnostics and evolving a strategy for the Government of India. According to Casso, UNIDO will initially set-up a small team to work with the European players to produce the diagnostics phase, which will be done in three to four months. During this period,
it will bring in trainers from UK to train the aerospace industry experts in India on the benchmarking tool. Later, the experts will be sent to several SMEs to enhance their respective product life-cycles. The recent growth in Indian commercial aviation as well as defence orders have had foreign companies competing to supply to the Indian market. In India, commercial aircraft market is expected to reach $24 billion in a few years. The aerospace components cluster will also work with lightweight composite materials that the equipment manufacturers in aerospace, as well as in automobile industry are focussing on. UNIDO’s initiative in the cluster will be in and around Bangalore, which will aim to help suppliers to set higher standards.