Brose India expands operations in Pune

Expanding its gamut of operations in the country, Brose India, the local arm of the German auto component supplier, the 4.8 billion euro Brose Group, has moved into a bigger facility in Pune, adding further production capacity and R&D capabilities such as new testing, validation and prototyping equipment for speedier product development processes.

“The investment made by us here is basically in raising the IT infrastructure, plant, machinery and manpower. We have not yet invested in any land and building. However, we are currently evaluating to buy our own land & building resources and we will take a decision on the same by the end of 2014,” said Ashwani Aggarwal, president, Brose India, without disclosing the scale of investments made so far.

Aiming for a turnover of 50 million euros in the next five years (2014-19), Brose India plans to introduce and start the production operations of door latches and associated modules later this year, a product line for which it claims to be the market leader, with a global market share of 33 percent.

“Later in 2014, we plan to start manufacturing the components from our vehicle door systems, which will include door latches and latch mini modules. We plan to install an initial production capacity of nearly one million door latches per year, which translates into our capacity of supplying to nearly 250,000 cars per year (a set of four door latches per car),” added Aggarwal.

Aggarwal targets to garner a nearly 15 percent market share in door systems and modules in India for Brose in next five years. Explaining his priorities, he said, “While we are also supporting exports from here, our primary objective is to address the OEM requirements in Indian market.”

The company is currently supplying window regulators (a part of its door systems vertical) to Ford India’s Chennai plant for its EcoSport compact SUV. It also plans to export these EcoSport-specific window regulators to Thailand and Europe later this year. Globally, the company is known for supplying the EcoSport-specific window regulators to Ford in Brazil, China and also in Russia.

It is to be noted that Brose is the global market leader of modules and components for vehicle doors, raking in nearly 50 percent of total revenues under this vertical. Door systems, window regulators, systems for liftgates, door closure systems and other components are covered under this vertical.

On the other hand, adjustment systems for front, rear seats (modular lightweight front and rear seat structures) and electric motors, drives (drive for transmission applications, electronic braking systems, cooling fluid pumps, steering motor, cooling fan module and others), each contribute equally with 25 percent of total revenues to the company.

While Europe stands as the largest market for Brose’s global turnover with 55 percent share, the American and Asian markets follow with 26 and 19 percent shares respectively.

Photograph: Ashwani Aggarwal, president, Brose India.