Motherson Sumi Systems Ltd, India’s biggest automobile parts maker, is targeting emerging markets including Brazil and China to meet its $5-billion (Rs 500-crore) sales target as vehicle deliveries at home drop.
The company that’s 25-per cent owned by Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd forecasts sales will increase 84 per cent in the year starting
April 1 from Rs 14,780 crore in the 12 months ended March 31, according to Chief Operating Officer Pankaj Mital.
The supplier of rear view mirrors, bumpers and body panels to Porsche Automobil Holding SE and Volkswagen AG is adding capacity in China, Thailand, Mexico and Brazil to reduce dependence in Europe and in India, where vehicle sales are poised to drop for the first time in a decade. Motherson is following its clients including Volkswagen and Bayerische Motoren Werke AG to Brazil, where vehicle production capacity is set to rise 50 percent by 2014.
“We are growing our facilities in developing countries,” Mital said in an interview. “While there will be replacement in developed countries, new volumes will come from developing countries.”
Automakers last year delivered 3.8 million vehicles in Brazil, the world’s fourth-largest auto market, and the country’s sales have grown at an average annual rate of a little more than nine per cent the last five years, according to Brazil’s auto manufacturer association Anfavea.
The group is forecasting growth of at least four per cent this year.
Auto sales in China, including those of cars and buses, may accelerate this year and surpass 20 million units for the first time, spurred by a rebound in economic growth and urbanisation, state-backed China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said last month. Passenger vehicle sales in China are expected to gain 8.5 percent to 16.8 million units in 2013, the group said.
Motherson Sumi’s shares have risen 68 per cent in the past year making it the second-best performing stock in the Bloomberg Asia Pacific Auto Parts & Equipment Index.
They gained 0.1 per cent to Rs 200 in Mumbai.
The shares trade at a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.3 times, compared with 10.4 for Johnson Controls Inc., the largest US auto parts maker and 14 for Japan’s Denso Corp.
