Lack of core parts technology, China is keen on global mergers and acquisitions

In the past six years, contrary to the continuous increase in China’s external trade surplus, the deficit in auto product trade has risen, rising to a record high of USD 25.5 billion in 2010, including a total vehicle deficit of US$24 billion and a component product deficit of US$1.5 billion. . ”

On September 7, Zhang Wei, Director of the Department of Mechanical and Electrical Affairs of the Ministry of Commerce, stated at the 2011 China International Auto Parts Development Summit that China’s spare parts exports are still mainly concentrated in the low-end position of the multinational procurement chain, which is constrained to some extent. The development of the internationalization of China's auto industry.

At present, most of the imported parts and components in the Chinese automobile market are key components with high technological content, high added value, gearboxes, and engines, accounting for 60% of the total. China's auto parts exports are mainly labor-intensive machinery such as wheels, wheels, steering knuckles and some electromechanical products.

In fact, apart from the passive situation in the export of parts and components, in the three key parts and components technologies of the automotive industry, including engine, transmission, and chassis technology, Chinese parts and components companies still lag behind in transmission and chassis technology.

“Now there are several million units of automatic transmissions sold in China, and less than 20,000 units are supplied by China’s local parts and components factory. The autonomous transmissions independently developed by China are basically zero.” On the 9th, Jifu Power Technology (China ) Fu Xi, general manager of the company, told reporters.

The field of transmission in China is basically started in 2003 and 2004. In the past few years, the development of a truly systematic system has become very demanding for automatic transmissions and automatic transmissions. Suddenly everyone has discovered that the automatic transmission is the development of the Chinese automobile industry. The bottleneck. "Now basically we don't see the Chinese automatic transmission products. Everyone can't walk this way. Now everybody is desperately doing a transmission." Fu Xia emphasized.

The significance of core components for vehicle companies is particularly important. During the financial crisis, the issues exposed by GM, Ford, and Chrysler’s three major American auto companies were typical. General powertrain technology relies on Opel. Ford’s powertrain technology relies on Mazda. After the financial crisis, it has made strategic adjustments and reinvested in powertrains.

On the contrary, the powertrain technology of European auto companies is very powerful. After the financial crisis, it has benefited from the past, such as Volkswagen, and Ford and GM follow-up are also pushing turbocharged engines.

"The automatic transmission will not be done now. It is really being blocked by foreign countries. The industrialization of China's automatic transmission will take 5-10 years. If we do not accelerate the pace now, the Chinese auto industry will be subject to people," said Fu Xiuche.

On the road to the development of automatic transmissions, Chinese OEMs are currently digesting their own things through commissioning, technology transfer, and transfer of intellectual property rights. This really requires a process. On the contrary, in the case of manual transmissions, China has already been in the stage of improving quality, and in recent years, the effect of development has been obvious, and the technology has matured.

In fact, in addition to the lack of core parts and components technology, China's parts and components industry also faces three major challenges: the weakening of the cost advantage of independent components and the tightening of the standard regulations to the dual pressures and modules of independent component formation technologies and costs. The spread of chemical production and synchronous development has brought higher and higher technical barriers to autonomous parts and components.

Parts companies are critical to the development of the Chinese auto industry. If the independent brands do not master the core components and technologies, the most direct result is a very low profit margin.

According to Roland Berger’s statistics, the current brand’s share of sales in the Chinese market is roughly one-third, but the share of sales accounts for 20%, and the profit is only 10%.

"The development of China's spare parts enterprises should strive for the government's greatest support under WTO rules, such as supporting the listing of manufacturing companies through various channels," said Xu Changming, director of the Information Resources Development Department of the National Information Center. In addition, international acquisition is also a way out.

Similarly in the transmission industry, for example, in 2009 Geely invested a total of 70 million Australian dollars in the acquisition of DSI, including core technologies and R&D centers. After the acquisition, DSI set up factories in Xiangtan, Jining and Tongling by virtue of its automatic transmission technology. Product assembly Geely Vision, Emgrand, Meng copper and SUV, EC8 and other new models.

According to Roland Berger's survey, the trend of the international spare parts industry in 2011 is that strategic investors from emerging countries, especially China, are increasingly active in the global M&A trading market for auto parts, and the growth has been particularly rapid. This is from German-speaking regions (Germany). (Austria, Switzerland) The development of the M&A market is clearly reflected. At present, at least one Chinese investor is involved in any major M&A transactions in auto parts.

It is worth noting that although M&A is an important opportunity for development, from a global perspective, more than 75% of M&A cases are unsuccessful. Shen Jun, vice president of Roland Berger Greater China, stated that the reasons for unsuccessful outcomes include unclear strategic objectives, excessively overpriced bids and unreasonably overestimated acquisition prices, and lack of effective measures after mergers and acquisitions, resulting in the loss of important personnel, etc. Wait.