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Continental Automotive to invest Rs 400 crore in India

Continental Automotive Components (India) Private Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Germany-based 24 billion Continental Corporation, a supplier of automotive components and tyres to OEMs, is planning to invest a little over Rs 400 crore in its Indian operations during the next two years ending December 2010. The major chunk of the investment will go into its newly set up technical centre. Around Rs 100 crore will be pumped into its manufacturing plant, both in Bangalore.The company is in the process of ramping up headcount at its technical centre, where it currently employs 600 people. Over the next one year, it aims to grow the headcount by 20 per cent, Gunnar Juergens, head of Technical Centre India told Business Standard.
“We started our operations in 2006 with a small team. Today, we have 600 employees working on cutting-edge technologies in the automotive sector. To ramp up our operations in India we will be investing Rs 150 crore each this year and next year.” In the last three years, the company has invested close to Rs 300 crore to set up the technical centre, he said.
Continental is also investing another Rs 100 crore at its new manufacturing plant set up in Bangalore last year to develop and produce electronic components for the booming auto electronic market in India. In this facility, Continental has already invested Rs 150 crore and is currently localising its products for the domestic auto OEMs. The additional investment in this facility, however, is linked to new orders being generated from OEMs, Markus Distelhoff, managing director, Continental India said.The new plant will manufacture electronic control units for engine management systems for ithe company’s OEMs in the domestic market, he said. The plant will also manufacture instrument clusters for passenger cars, commercial vehicles, two-wheelers, immobilizers, among others.He said the company was optimistic about its growth prospects in the Indian market despite economic slowdown. “The automotive market in India is witnessing a decline in its growth rates from 15 per cent to 8 per cent presently. This has impacted our business also as our business is linked with the automobile OEMs. But still we will continue to grow our business in India,” he said.The company, today launched officially its new technical centre in Bangalore which will develop automotive technology and provide software services for Continental’s automotive group.