Chinese Firms Expanding Presence
M&As among auto parts manufacturers are becoming increasingly frequent, led by leaders of the global industry. Only one Chinese auto parts manufacturer joined the list of the world’s top 100 in 2011, but the number increased to seven and China came in fourth on the list last year.
According to the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association, the top 10 in terms of 2018 sales are Bosch, Denso, Magna, Continental, ZF, Aisin, Hyundai Mobis, Lear, Faurecia and Valeo. Bosch took the top spot for nine years in a row and last year’s rankings are the same as the previous year’s except that Faurecia beat Valeo.
The average value of M&As among auto parts manufacturers was approximately US$20 billion for 10 years until 2017, but the size jumped to US$97.5 billion last year. ZF acquired TRW, an American vehicle safety technology developer, for US$12.4 billion in 2015.
At present, American, Japanese and German companies are leading the industry. Last year’s top 100 include 23 American, 23 Japanese, 19 German and six South Korean auto parts manufacturers. Hyundai Mobis, which is the only South Korean company on the top 10 list, ranked seventh in 2016 to 2018. Last year, Aisin took the sixth place with US$35 billion in sales while the sales of Hyundai Mobis totaled US$25.62 billion. The gap between them increased from US$8.86 billion to US$9.38 billion in 2018.
China joined the top 100 list for the first time in 2011. Yanfeng took the 15th place and six other Chinese companies followed it on the list last year.