China's automatic transmission import value increases by 28.9% annually

China Automobile Industry Association statistics show that in the first half of this year, China's imports of automobile transmissions 2.88 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 35%, the value of transmission imports reached 3.666 billion US dollars, an increase of about 101%, much higher than other parts of the car.

Since 2007, the transmission has surpassed body accessories, parts and engine accessories, and parts, and has become China's highest-valued auto parts. This change not only reflects the rapid growth in the demand for various types of automatic transmission market in China, but also verifies the fact that the localization rate of automatic transmissions with higher technological content is lower than that of engines and manual transmissions.

â–  In recent years, the value of imports continued to rise

The data shows that in 2005 and 2006, body accessories and parts were the highest value imported auto parts in China, which were 2.9 billion U.S. dollars and 3.2 billion U.S. dollars respectively. In the same period, the import value of the transmission assembly in China was 1.2 billion and 2 billion U.S. dollars, respectively, which was a big gap between the vehicle accessories and parts.

In 2007, this trend has changed significantly. While the value of car accessories and parts imports dropped slightly, the value of the transmission assembly surged to $3.28 billion. In the following two years, it has continued to be the highest valued auto component for China.

In 2009, the import value of transmission-based components of the transmission system reached US$5.556 billion, which was approximately US$1.8 billion higher than that of the second-row body accessories, which was “a long way ahead”.

"The high import value of transmissions is mainly due to the fact that a large part of China's automatic transmissions rely on imports," said Shi Zhaoyao, deputy secretary general of China Gear Professional Association.

In recent years, as the level of automobile consumption in China has gradually increased, consumers have become increasingly demanding in terms of driving comfort. Regardless of whether they are passenger cars or commercial vehicles, the ratio of automatic transmissions has increased substantially, especially in In the passenger car with a large market base, the automatic transmission is more popular. The data shows that the automatic transmission based on AT (hydraulic automatic transmission) and CVT (continuously variable transmission) has increased from 32% in 2004 to 39% in 2008 in the passenger car market in China. . In 2008, the sales volume of passenger cars in China was about twice that of 2004.

With the rapid growth of market demand, the production of automatic transmissions in China is not satisfactory. The lack of independent products and the insufficiency of localized production of foreign-funded products have led to large reliance on imports for automatic transmissions. According to statistics, from 2001 to 2009, the average annual value of China's auto transmission imports increased by about 28.9%, which greatly exceeds the average annual growth rate of the vehicle's import value. In 2009, the import value of auto transmissions reached US$3.723 billion, an increase of 26% over the same period of last year. %.

â–  The lack of core technology is the key

“The development of automatic transmissions is difficult, and it is the last and most stubborn “position” of Chinese cars in the development of powertrain systems. The foreign companies’ technical blockade against domestic companies is very severe.” former executive deputy chairman and secretary general of China Automotive Industry Association Zhang Shulin, director of the China Automotive Technology and Research Center, said.

“Passenger vehicles are generally composed of several systems, including bodywork, powertrains, chassis, and electrical and electronic systems. China’s automotive industry made early breakthroughs in body technology. In the 1990s, a group of talents was acquired through Sino-foreign joint ventures and cooperation. With certain technologies, as of the beginning of this century, the vehicle body development technology has matured, and after 2000, the development of the powertrain system represented by the engine has become the focus of China's automobile industry. At present, representative vehicle and engine companies are represented. All of them have strong technical development capabilities. At this stage, the focus of technical research in the industry is on automatic transmissions.” Liu Minghui, the vice-minister of the basic research department of FAW Technology Center, simplified the development history of China's automobile key components. “Currently, There are various technical routes for domestic automatic transmissions, and there is a large gap between technological strength and foreign countries. There is no industrialization of independent products, including vehicle companies and independent transmission plants, and they do not have corresponding capabilities."

“The price of imported automatic transmissions is high and it is difficult for the self-owned branded vehicle companies that compete in the market to compete with cost advantages. Therefore, many self-owned brand models still rely on manual transmissions,” said Zhang Shulin.

"The lack of core technology has made the production of autonomous automatic transmissions in China basically in a blank space and does not pose any competitive pressure on imported automatic transmissions. This allows foreign-funded enterprises to have more choices in the industrial layout, and they can slow down the pace of localized production. While maintaining the core technology, it maintains high profits." Zhang Shulin said.

â–  Status is difficult to change in the short term

Faced with the rapid expansion of the automatic transmission market, domestic companies are not without action. In the past two years, news of industrialization of autonomous automatic transmissions has been frequently reported, including CVT and AMT (mechanical automatic transmission). However, from the current market performance of autonomous brand automatic transmissions, the status quo is not satisfactory.

“Autonomous automatic transmission is not a matter of good or bad, but whether it is a problem or not.” Shi Zhaoyao said, “At present, the status quo of industrialization of various types of automatic transmissions developed by independent brand enterprises is not optimistic. China’s auto industry needs to develop and produce There is still a long way to go for a good automatic transmission, and the high value of transmission imports will continue in the future."

Globally renowned consulting company HIS Global Perspectives Corporation data show that as of 2009, China's own brand full vehicle automatic transmission fitting rate remained at about 10%, compared to previous years did not significantly increase. However, HIS predicts that starting from this year, the proportion of self-branded auto transmissions will increase year by year, reaching 30% by 2015. At the same time, the share of automatic transmissions in China's passenger car market will increase to 47%.

In the face of a huge market space, foreign-funded automatic transmission companies have begun to deploy in China. Many internationally renowned companies such as Gatco, Honda, and Marelli, Italy have successively established joint ventures or wholly-owned companies in China to achieve localized production of automatic transmissions. In May of this year, the Volkswagen DSG (Dual Clutch Transmission) was officially put into operation at the Dalian plant.

Experts believe that the pace of foreign-funded transmission companies accelerating their local production in China will not change the status quo of the increase or maintenance of China’s transmission import value in the next few years. "The market is developing rapidly, and the proportion of the locally produced automatic transmissions and imported automatic transmissions will change, but the import value of transmissions will increase." Shi Zhaoyao believes.