THE BEST YEARS OF THE AUTO INDUSTRY ARE STILL TO COME

Even as they struggle through the economic meltdown, vehicle makers can look ahead to a high-growth, flexible, global future. 

Automobiles designed for emerging economies are getting some attention these days. In March 2009, Business Week covered the launch of the celebrated US$3,000 microcar by Tata Motors Ltd. with the headline “What Can Tata’s Nano Teach Detroit?” A number of other vehicle makers, such as Mahindra & Mahindra and Maruti in India, Chery in China, and global auto companies such as Renault, Volkswagen, and GM, have been noted for the inexpensive cars they are designing for new markets.

But the inexpensive microcar is only one small part of a much larger and more diverse trend. The motor vehicle manufacturing industry, which is 100 years old, is only now emerging from its infancy. Its time of greatest growth is yet to come. Automakers that are willing to think freshly about their markets and their business models will be in a position to benefit from the greatest wave of expansion that the industry has ever seen.

It takes fortitude to make this assertion in 2009. Few people see the auto industry as poised for growth at all. Even before the devastation of the credit crisis, motor vehicle manufacturing was considered a mature sector, with static (or even eroding) markets and too much competition. Since the crisis began, the industry has been portrayed as beleaguered and hapless, with jaded consumers and deeply discounted products, and needing billions of taxpayer dollars just to stay afloat.

But the reports of the industry’s death, and even the perception of decline, are greatly exaggerated. Look beyond its current challenges, and you can see increasing levels of productivity and capability, significant innovations in both the power train and the look and feel of motor vehicles, and — most important of all — a wave of accelerating economic development in many countries that will, sooner or later, produce immense new demand for personal mobility.

To grasp these dynamics, we must first understand the automobile market, not as it is often perceived, but as it really is. Millions of people around the world are making their way into cities and seeking automobiles as a means to a better life. That momentum may have slowed in 2008 and 2009, but it hasn’t vanished. Research conducted recently by Booz & Company shows that the global customer base for automobiles over the next 10 years falls into three broad categories, based primarily on which countries customers live in.

1. The rapidly emerging economies (REEs) consist of the so-called BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) and a group of other relatively wealthy developing nations, such as Malaysia, Argentina, Mexico, Turkey, Thailand, Iran, and Indonesia. Millions of families in these countries are making or contemplating the purchase of their first automobile.
2. The lower-growth economies (compared to the REEs) consist of about 100 nations with relatively impoverished populations and poor economic prospects. However, their political leaders are interested in building up the middle class and see personal mobility as a major stepping stone. These countries may become markets for motorized transportation after 2020.
3. The mature economies include the established industrialized nations in North America and Europe, and Japan. Population growth and vehicle replacement, rather than economic growth, will determine the market for automobiles there.

These three groups add up to an enormous amount of market potential: Booz & Company estimates suggest that more than 370 million additional vehicles could be sold by 2013 and more than 715 million by 2018. But business models in the auto industry are not currently equipped to capture these increases. During their first 100 years, vehicle manufacturers (VMs) grew used to applying a single dominant approach to assembling and selling automobiles around the world. They sold similar vehicles with the same power trains through remarkably similar franchised dealer networks, with 80 percent of automotive sales and production based in the United States, Europe, and Japan.

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COMMENTARY:  If you are research the global automotive market, then this is a great source of information.

Courtesy of an article dated July 29, 2009 appearing in Strategy+Business