Southern China's Automotive Lighting Industry Shows Glowing Performance

Last year marked a major advance in the rapidly developing automotive industry in China, especially in the southern part of the country.

That progress was evident at the 7th China (Guangzhou) International Automobile Exhibition (Auto Guangzhou 2009), held at the Guangzhou International Exhibition and Convention Center on Nov. 24-30, which achieved significant improvements over its predecessors in terms of scale, internationalization, exhibitor growth, and comprehensiveness of exhibits.

Since the first Auto Guangzhou kicked off in 2003 it has won more and more international attention, thanks to the key role played by Southern China in the overall Chinese auto market. The auto parts and accessory sector of the annual exhibition has also enjoyed steady growth.

Visitors from all over the world will again be able to witness the booming development of the automotive industry in the region at the upcoming 6th China International Automotive Aftermarket Industry and Tuning Trade Fair (AAITF 2010), scheduled for Mar. 3-5 at the China Import and Export Fair Pazhou Complex in Guangzhou, which is expected to fill over 4,000 exhibition booths in an 80,000-square-meter exhibition area. Over 150,000 visitors are forecast to attend.

Along with the rest of the industry, China's automotive lighting segment has been progressing at high speed and catching the eye of buyers worldwide. The number of auto-lamp makers in China is increasing, so growing numbers of companies in the business are trying to find niches in either the original equipment (OE) or aftermarket (AM) business in both the domestic and export markets.

Numerous international automakers, including Honda, Nissan, and Toyota, are choosing Guangzhou as their Chinese production bases, helping to make automotive manufacturing one of the city's top-three industries. At the same time, Southern China, centered around Guangdong Province, is now China's largest regional market for AM auto parts.

This regional auto industry development has laid down a solid foundation for the automotive lighting industry in Southern China. Currently, auto-lamp makers there sell their products in three major ways: direct sale to automakers (the OE mode); sale through agents, distributors, wholesalers, or retailers; and sale through auto-repair channels. As one of the four largest automobile production areas in China, Guangdong is also one of the country's largest markets for auto lamps.

With the strong support of both the central and provincial governments, Guangzhou is projected to turn out more than 1.6 million new cars in 2010, bringing the overall auto industry's production value there to 360 billion RMB, including 160 billion from the auto-parts sector. The city's goal is to win more orders from international auto-parts companies and gradually become a global supply base for high-quality, competitively priced auto parts. Neighboring cities in Guangdong Province, including Shenzhen, Fushan, Huizhou, Zhongshan, and Jiangmen, are expected to join with Guangzhou in forming a first-class auto-parts industry cluster.

Sales of new cars in China during the first 10 months of 2009 topped 10 million units and the figure for the whole year was expected to exceed 12 million units, boosting China ahead of the United States to become the world's largest auto market.

According to initial estimates by research institutes, China now has about 4,000 companies producing automotive lighting products, including headlamps, auxiliary lamps, brake lights, tail lights, fog lamps, instrument lamps, turn-signal lights, and turn signals.

China's auto-lamp industry produced more than 200 million sets and realized sales of close to US$770 million in 2008, a 22% improvement over the previous year. The average price of auto-lamp products has been growing as well, showing an increase of 32% in 2008 alone. Exports have also been expanding.