China's Automobile Fastener Industry: Status and Prospects (1)

1. Introduction When global attention is being focused on how to liberate from the financial crisis, China’s auto industry is booming, and the pace of development has drawn worldwide attention. The world’s major auto manufacturers have entered the Chinese market one after another, and their production and sales have grown explosively. In 2010, China’s auto production and sales volume exceeded 18 million vehicles, once again becoming the world's largest automotive producer and largest new car sales market.

Since the car industry entered China more than 20 years ago, the economic driving effect is very obvious. The upstream drives the manufacturing and material industries such as steel, electronics, rubber, and machinery; the downstream drives the industries of road construction, real estate, finance, tourism, and catering. The economic development of Shanghai, Tianjin, Changchun, Wuhan and Guangzhou has contributed to the automotive industry.

However, behind these achievements, we must also face up to the problems that exist in the development of the automotive industry. Automobile fasteners are often overlooked due to their small size and variety, and they are also small parts that are used to support the host.

There are many varieties of automotive fasteners, although some are special fasteners, but most are standard fasteners. Due to the high requirements on the quality and reliability of automobiles, the products produced in China cannot yet be fully domesticated. At present, special fasteners in car fasteners, such as connecting rod bolts in engine, cylinder head bolts, flywheel bolts, special bolts for tires, bolts for power transmission machinery, and suspension bolts for chassis, still have to rely on imports. From the perspective of development trends, the fastener selection of the automotive industry should also be based on the domestic, that is, to meet the requirements of technology and work performance.

2. Status Quo and Development of the Automotive Market According to the statistics of China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in 2010, the annual production and sales of automobiles in China were 18,264,700 and 18,061,900 respectively, an increase of 32.44% and 32.37% respectively. The production and sales of passenger cars were 13.8891 million units and 13.7578 million units respectively, an increase of 33.83% and 33.17% year-on-year. The production and sales of commercial vehicles were 4,367,600 units and 4,004,100 units, respectively, an increase of 28.19% and 29.90% year-on-year. Compared with 2010, although it will not exceed the high growth of 30% last year, it seems that the growth of 10%-20% has become the consensus of the industry. According to this calculation, China's auto production and sales are expected to exceed 20 million in 2011. Although the auto market in the first-tier cities has become saturated, with the release of consumption in second and third-tier cities, 20 million vehicles are not a difficult task for the auto market that has just entered the fast lane.

The successive introduction of a series of policies and regulations, such as the "Adjustment and Revitalization Plan for the Automotive Industry", "The Implementation Plan for the Revitalization of the Mechanical Basic Component Industry", the recall system, energy policy, environmental protection policy, and brand sales management, will promote the automotive industry to be more rational and regulate health. Development. At present, there are more than 150 vehicle companies in China, including SAIC, FAW, Dongfeng, Chang'an, BAIC, Chery, Geely, Lifan, and BYD. According to the prediction of China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, based on the development of the entire vehicle during the “12th Five-Year Plan” period, which is far ahead of the automotive fasteners, the next five years will be a period of rapid development of automotive fasteners and an opportunity to expand the production of fasteners. .

3. Statistics on the status quo of the automotive fastener industry show that there are more than 70 automotive fastener companies listed in the statistical category, of which more than 20 are joint ventures, and the total number of people is about 60,000 people, and the assets are about 10 billion. yuan. Although China's automobile fastener industry has initially formed a coexisting pattern of multiple forms of ownership, in general, it still belongs to the transitional period from "orderlessness to orderliness." Domestic large-scale automobile fastener companies include: Dongfeng Automobile Fasteners Co., Ltd., Fuao Automotive Parts Co., Ltd. Fasteners Branch Company, Shaanxi Fangyuan Automobile Standard Parts Co., Ltd., Shanghai Teqiang Automobile Fasteners Co., Ltd. Company, Wenzhou Mingtai Standard Parts Co., Ltd., Zhejiang Changhua Automobile Parts Co., Ltd., Shanghai Shangbiao Automotive Fasteners Co., Ltd., Zhejiang Qiangli Bolt Co., Ltd., Audaco Metal Products (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., and Shui On Standard Parts Factory , Rui An Ruiqiang Standard Parts Co., Ltd., Chun Yu (Dongguan) Hardware Products Co., Ltd., etc.

Domestic-funded automotive fastener companies have cost competitive advantages in some engine fasteners and most of the non-key fasteners markets. They have started to imitate foreign products, actively introduced digestion and absorption, and quickly formed supporting capabilities for the domestic market. However, with high-tech engine fasteners, there is still a lack of development capabilities or basic control of foreign capital, pending breakthrough progress; products are mainly concentrated in low-value products, and the core technology of products has obvious exogenous features.

Practice shows that the improvement of the competitiveness of China's automotive fasteners is largely due to the advent of BYD, Chery, Young, Geely, Great Wall, Changfeng, Jianghuai and other automobile companies. Among the more than 5,000 fastener companies in Zhejiang Province, Nearly 40 companies are supporting the production of automotive fasteners, forming an industry cluster based on automotive fasteners. The entire vehicle company can find the matching automotive fastener system in the nearest area, and have strong interoperability among enterprises, high operating efficiency, and strong innovation. The development of automotive fastener industry clusters featuring specialization, specialization and newness has It will help increase the supporting capacity of China's auto industry and improve the overall competitiveness of the auto industry.

The main conditions of China's automotive fastener industry (1) Auto fastener companies have poor independent innovation capabilities. Most of the products are modeled on foreign countries, lacking original achievements and brands and products with independent intellectual property rights, and lacking effective technological innovation systems. Focus on the internal and small-scale collaboration between the enterprise, the results are difficult to industrialization; automotive fastener materials, basic technology research is weak, special materials, production is difficult to achieve economic scale, and material technology standards are chaotic, basic technical data and industry statistics The data is poor.

(2) The development of automotive fasteners relative to the automotive industry in China is slow. Fasteners like FAW and Dongfeng are affiliated with the mainframe plant. This status has led to its research and development capabilities fully dependent on the research and development capabilities of the main engine plant. Attached to the upgrading of the main engine plant is passive; and some large-scale automobile fastener manufacturers are in a very delicate “marginalized” region in the entire large-scale automobile manufacturing enterprises: either year after year. In the research and development, we have invested capital technology, without any return, and eventually reached the end of the market, or they are at a core position. We must have policies and have preferential policies and preferences to survive and develop.

(3) The level of equipment and testing is behind. Today's automotive fasteners impose higher requirements on equipment and testing. In addition to a few joint ventures in China that have relatively strong capabilities in automotive fasteners, most companies are in short supply in this regard. The entire equipment and inspection are relatively backward, and the quality level is not high, especially the quality stability is not strong. In this state, the quality requirements of automotive fasteners for automotive fasteners are increasing. The quality of automotive fasteners actually depends on the assurance of the entire system from equipment and materials to testing and technology, rather than simply picking out defective products. On the whole, the status quo of China's automotive fastener industry can not meet the needs of China's auto industry development.