China's auto parts industry is blessed by the scourge

The world-renowned economic consultancy IHS stated that since the earthquake in Japan, the global automotive industry output will have dropped by 30% in the short term. Due to the lack of international spare parts supply, China's auto parts industry may be blessed due to the scourge.

According to IHS statistics, the current global automotive industry output has fallen by 13%, and auto production has been reduced by at least 320,000 vehicles. Automakers and parts suppliers around the world are busy looking for the source of critical components, especially the shortage of electronic and transmission components. If within 6 weeks, the automobile parts factory affected by the earthquake cannot be resumed, global vehicle production will be reduced by 100,000 vehicles per day, a drop of up to 30%.

U.S. component imports mainly come from North America and China, Japan and South Korea, which account for nearly 80% of U.S. auto parts imports. Among them, China is the largest source of brakes imported from the United States. In addition, China exports more parts to the United States for its brakes and body parts.

After the earthquake, Japan’s spare parts supply capability to the United States has been severely weakened, and the global supply chain may also face pressure from Japan’s tight supply. Automobile analysts believe that the pace of overseas expansion by Japanese companies may slow down in order to restore local production capacity; in addition, the global demand for decentralized auto supply systems is expected to increase, adding new opportunities for China's auto parts industry. .

The scale of automobile production and sales in the United States will continue to fill the gap and increase the demand for parts and components. While the production and sales scale upwards to fill the gap and pull up the demand for parts and components, at the same time, in the past 10 years, the United States auto industry has become a trend of increasing imports of parts and components. The need to further control costs in the post-crisis era has also forced U.S. and Ford U.S. depots to seek to increase the procurement of spare parts for emerging markets.

For the future development trend of China's spare parts industry, relevant domestic sources expressed optimism. Nowadays, the production of parts and components in the world will become more and more concentrated. With the adjustment of the parts and components industry, the concentration of China's parts and components industry is also increasing. Taking the piston ring industry as an example, basically 80% of the production of parts and components is now controlled by the top 6 companies, and some parts and components industry account for 80% of the total output. Of course, this figure is mainly the main engine plant, which does not include the maintenance market. The domestic maintenance market is uncontrollable and there are too many counterfeit and inferior products. In the future, this concentration may increase and become the top three.

People in the industry believe that with the development of complete vehicles, especially the competition between self-owned brands and foreign countries, the development of auto parts in China will be very fast. Compared with foreign companies, China's spare parts industry has obvious cost advantages. Labor costs in developed countries are at least five times higher than those in China, and Japan is even 10 times higher. At the same level of quality, China's product prices are only about 70% of that of developed countries, and the market has obvious competitive advantages. Based on this, in the future, China's spare parts products will account for at least half of the international market share.

Industry insiders also believe that during the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” period, the Chinese auto parts industry is also facing challenges from two aspects: On the one hand, more automakers will establish R&D centers in China. In the past, many foreign companies developed Drawings are produced by Chinese manufacturers. If R&D centers are established in China, will domestic component manufacturers have the ability to keep up with them? On the other hand, although we have a labor advantage, there are places that are cheaper than our labor force. Chinese companies will inevitably compete with companies in foreign developing countries in the field of parts with low added value.