Lumax expands into transmission-shift towers, wins large orders from Indian PV OEMs

Lumax Auto Technologies (LATL), which is part of the Lumax DK Jain Group and houses the automotive lighting major's non-lighting, new-age product lines such as antennae, telematics, and gear shift selectors among others, is set to increase its content-per car with the introduction of transmission shift towers for the Indian market.

In 2019, LATL had partnered with Germany's Jopp, a domain specialist in mechatronics and driver interface systems, to transition from being a gear shifter assembly supplier under its Lumax Mannoh Allied Technologies (LMAT) JV, to a transmission sub-system supplier. LATL is now aiming for a 20% market share in the gear shift towers business over the next 24 months. In fact, the company claims it already has an order book for 500,000 units from two Japanese and an Indian passenger vehicle OEM.

Lumax Jopp Allied Tech to begin supplies from June 2024

The joint venture, called Lumax Jopp Allied Technologies (LJAT), which is located at LATL's mother facility in Manesar, Haryana, will commence OEM supplies from June 2024. The company says all three existing supply agreements with its customers will fructify by June 2025.

With a dominant market share of 55% in the gearshift lever category to PV and CV OEMs in India, LATL says it found moving into gear shift levers as it as a natural progression to offer end-to-end solutions to its clientele.

"We felt a strong need to be a full-systems supplier in the transmission domain. That's where we found the right partner in Jopp. We aim to have a 20% share of the transmission shift towers category in the next two years," Vikas Marwah, CEO, LATL, told Autocar Professional.

LATL is a key supplier of gearshift selectors to Maruti Suzuki India, Toyota Kirloskar Motor, Hyundai Motor India, Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra in the PV segment. The company’s three facilities – at Manesar, Bengaluru and Gujarat – have a combined annual installed capacity of 4 million units. "We are extremely bullish about the Indian PV market and the potential of LATL's growth in the coming years. We will set up another plant in the West (Pune) that will further strengthen our capacity to 4.5 million annual units," added Marwah.

At present, the company is witnessing a 70:30 ratio of manual transmission shifters to automatic transmission gearshift selectors, and believes the AT trend is gaining momentum very quickly, and is likely to command a 50% share of the PV market in the next three years.

While it is an equal split currently in terms of value of the shifters, going ahead, LATL expects AT shift selectors, with their high-on-technology product attributes, to dominate with a 75% value share. "With their CAN-based technology, the value of the AT shifters will be driven up even further. Also, these shifters are becoming more premium in terms of their look and feel, which also grows their value contribution," Marwah explained.

With LMAT and LJAT, Lumax is building mechatronics, software and electronics competencies to locally design and validate new products based on customer demand. The in-house LMAT R&D facility enables LATL to front-load the design and engineering based on customer requirements. What’s more, its new product development time has also been significantly reduced.

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Lumax Auto targets Rs 15,000 kit value by FY2026

LATL, which currently offers a range of products categorised under seven technology verticals, and derived out of 8 joint ventures and one technical collaboration, aims to sizeably increase its per-car content with its expanded range of solutions.

"It would be wishful thinking for us to have all the eight JV products implemented into one vehicle. We do not have that right now. But we do see that at least on 5-6 of the upcoming models of several PV OEMs, five of our JVs with their products will be present. We expect our average kit value to increase to Rs 15,000 in another 24-36 months," remarked Marwah.

"As the level of vehicle electronics increases further, there is more opportunity to grow our kit value, particularly if we grow our play in the telematics space, which is an electronics-intensive category, and therefore offers higher value," he pointed out

Meanwhile, Lumax Ituran Telematics, LATL’s JV  with Israel's Ituran Location and Control, LATL is venturing into telematics products catering to the commercial vehicle segment, emanating out of the recently introduced AIS-140 regulations. "We are making an entry into telematics with the commercial vehicle space, which will be followed by two-wheelers, and then aftermarket," Marwah said.

The company says that with almost 3 million light- and heavy-duty commercial vehicles plying on Indian roads, it has homed in on a massive market opportunity for its telematics devices. "It is a huge market out there, and we will tap into that opportunity. We will introduce our telematics devices by Q4 FY2024," Marwah added.

LATL, which had clocked Rs 1,850 crore in revenues in FY2023, aims to continue outpacing the market, and achieve 20% year-on-year growth in FY2024. Clearly, this is yet another supplier  which is contributing to the strong performance of India Auto Component Inc, which has clocked record revenues of Rs 560,000 crore in FY2023.