Sunjay Kapur, president of the auto component industry body, the domestic automobile industry is stepping up efforts to improve localization of electronic components to reduce dependence on other nations, particularly China.
Kapur noted that the Ministry of Heavy Industries, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), and the Automotive Manufacturers Association of India (ACMA) are collaborating to achieve the goal of localization, particularly in electronics.
He noted that there lies a great opportunity for the auto component industry with the big push towards electrification. With growth in consumption of electric vehicles, the industry is witnessing fast transformation of the auto components sector.
The component industry is making steady investments and acquiring technology companies. “We will have to keep localising we as an industry are very fortunate that we can work with the electronics industry as well. Together with combined forces, we can look at scale for localisation efforts and that is something that we have to do,” Kapur stated.
Asia accounted for 65 percent of imports followed by Europe and North America, with 26 percent, respectively.
Imports from Asia grew by 21 percent, from Europe by 6 per cent, and from North America by 29 percent.
Kapur noted that the ACMA executive committee has onboarded two members from the electronics industry.
“The government is also pushing this, their agenda is also to push localisation. It is a great driver for us also as an industry, because looking at the amount of imports of electronics. We will have as a country going ahead. We definitely need to scale up efforts to localise,” Kapur said.
“It is expected that 40 percent of the vehicles will be software. This was not the scenario before and it has happened so quickly. The automobile industry is now becoming the mobility industry in that sense,” Kapur said.
When asked about the business outlook for the auto component sector next fiscal, Kapur noted: “In India we will see growth as passenger vehicles and commercial vehicles are expected to grow. If there is a recession in the US. hopefully volumes will get replaced by other export markets.” The turnover of the automotive component industry stood at Rs 2.65 lakh crore for the April-September period.
