“India appears to be the best opportunity for growth in the coming years,” says Gerard Roose, President and CEO of Inteva Products, a USD 1.7 billion American automotive systems and components major. In line with that outlook, Inteva Products has become the latest foreign industry player to make a fresh investment to tap the India opportunity better.
The Troy, Michigan headquartered Tier1 supplier announces a USD 3.3 million investment for expansion in its India plant, located in Chakan, near Pune. The investment is being made for a 70% expansion in the plant’s production space, growing to 85,000 sq. ft, and the construction of an additional 26,000 sq. ft. of office space. The production space expansion is being made for new production lines for window regulators, latches, and window regulator motor assemblies.
“With this expansion, we’re able to offer our customers even more localized, high-quality automotive components that meet their evolving needs,” says Sanjay Kataria, VP – Rest of Asia, and MD – India, Inteva Products. The India business, which contributes to around 5% of Inteva Products’ global revenue, has a 37% CAGR target for the FY20-FY26 period. It has grown from USD 3 million in FY20, to a projected USD 49 million this year. An additional USD 10 million is targeted to be added next year.
Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra, and PSA are the top three customers, in terms of business, for Inteva Products India. They together contribute around 68% of the Tier 1 supplier’s India revenue. It has an annual production capacity of 20 million units of window regulator, window regulator motor, side door latch, lift gate latch cumulatively. 9 million of that is being used currently.
80% of the plant’s production is supplied to the domestic industry players. Customers in export markets also include Tesla, Stellantis, and Daimler Truck.
Tapping Indian engineering talent
Like a few other global players, Inteva Products is also tapping the Indian engineering talent for growth globally. For example, its 200-member strong technical centre in Bengaluru is the sole engineering centre, among 10 globally, for CAE (Computer-Aided Engineering) projects.With global engineering centres in various geographies, Inteva Products’ strategy is to have virtually round the clock engineering and R&D activities. The technical centre can also do component, product, and system level testing.
Further expansion
Marco vom Wege, VP and Chief Commercial Officer, Inteva Products expects India and China to have neck-to-neck market growth rates. And, with a projection for the India business to touch the USD 125 million mark in the next five years, the component major will have to set up a second plant in the country. An expansion of the technical centre is also on the cards. The final plan for both may be decided soon. Pune is also in the reckoning for the second technical centre.
Roose says that unlike on a couple of occasions earlier when the Indian auto market was expected to post strong growth but didn’t, this time the chances of the performance matching the expectations are high.
