Kapil Rai of ARaymond shares a ringside view of the current status of the automotive industry
ARaymond Automotive offers innovative fastening and assembly solutions for the Indian and the global automotive market. Kapil Rai, Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing, ARaymond spoke with DMI at the 2020 Auto Expo held in Delhi in mid-February. Presenting, edited excerpts from the talk.
How do you see the overall sentiment and the demand trends in the auto component industry?
There is slight improvement in the demand and I see this as temporary because the industry is now shifting from BS4 to BS6 so the inventory pipeline at the dealership seems to be drying up – therefore a demand spike is visible because the OEMs are trying to fill up this pipeline. I don’t think that the actual revival of the actual demand has taken place, so will have to wait for that actual demand to show from the consumer for another 3 – 4 months’ time. To say with confidence that this is going to stay, we will have to wait till April-May 2020.
What has been your experience of this Auto Expo considering the global and local auto manufacturing industry growth has been a bit subdued and then the Coronavirus situation?
You’re right – in absence of the Coronavirus scenario and the recent subdued sentiments, one’s normal expectation could have been to gain something from the auto expo in terms of networking, and displaying our capabilities to have more customers on board. But unfortunately, because of these reasons I am seeing that the response is lukewarm – not very many people are visiting; not even the traditional customers are turning up because of the fear of the contagion. I mean the show is not as promising as we have expected so far.
Considering that the BS6 emission standard will be mandatory from April 1st, so what could be the direct or indirect effects on India’s Auto industry and how do you see this from an implementation perspective?
Given the noble aspiration behind the regulation, the automotive industry should contribute towards that. From a pure business perspective, it is going to have a cost impact which will take its own time to get absorbed. This will impact the industry in the 1st quarter or may be little longer, because as consumers we are quiet price sensitive; so even the price absorption will take some time.
India’s automotive industry is the forefront in the adoption of industry 4.0 technologies like robotics, additive manufacturing and all, what are the main factors driving the adoption of this technology 4.0?
India is emerging as a global hub for the automotive industry and because of the low-cost arbitrage more OEMs are setting up shop in India. Our consumers are going to have a higher expectation of technological advancement, and as an industry we need adapt fast and deliver on these expectations.
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