Continental Automotive India Private Ltd, the wholly owned subsidiary of Continental AG of Germany, is focusing on localisation to scale up its business, according to president and CEO Prashanth Doreswamy.
“Localisation is very important in India as it is a very value-driven market as importing everything gets very expensive,” he said. “The biggest challenge for us is to make our products affordable. That is why localisation is very important for us” he told The Hindu.
“At this point of time, it [business volume in India] could be X but Continental sees a huge growth happening like what happened in China two years back,” Mr. Doreswamy said.
“Keeping this is mind, Continental continues to invest in India as addition of new technologies are bringing new capacities or even localisation.”
“Our vision is to make mobility affordable and be a part of the change in the market. We believe in growing at a faster rate than the growth in the market. In the last four years, Continental has almost grown 2.5 times the market. While the India market is growing at about 8%, we were growing at about 20%,” he said.
The company recently inaugurated a new plant in Pune for its surface solutions business where it has invested more than ₹200 crore.
This business manufactures applications on seating, door trims, and instrument panels which are alternative for leather and comes at a much lower cost without losing its appearance or feel.
“Our products are manufactured to the latest global Continental technology standards and so meet current and future global automotive specifications, for example regarding abrasion, fastness to light and in-vehicle emissions. But we will also be manufacturing our eco-friendly foam foil Yorn and Yorn Light in Pune in the future,” said Landry Tchapda, business area and plant, Continental Surface Solutions India.
“Our main target is to replace the real leather in the cars as many animals have to be killed and our aim is to reduce that number,’ he said.
Besides leather, he said, the company has other applications such as plastic, slush technologies, fabrics.
“This is the market that we are attending to. Presently, we are targeting the premium segment as we see enough opportunities. We look at the current market trends which gives us the confidence that we will be successful in the market,” he added. According to Mr. Doreswamy, the growth in India is driven by government regulations that are enforced ‘which is a tale win for us.’
He said since India is an evolving market, the company sees some of the assisted functions coming here. “That is what we are working on for the Indian market in terms of the assisted functions.” he said.
Continental India has over 8,000 employees in India across 7 plants and 13 locations. Its tech centre in Bengaluru, with over 4,000 software engineers, supports all its product lines and the business areas locally and even product developments for the global business.
