Fasching to produce seat belts in India, targets SE Asian markets
Fasching Salzburg GmbH, the Austriabased safety belt ma manufacturer, plans to set uup a manufacturing facility in India targeting also the marketmarkets in countries like Malaysia, VVietnam, Indonesia and Thailand. FFasching develops and produces sasafety belts mainly for buses, coaccoaches, LCVs, trucks and wheelchair applications. It offers a wide rang range of safety-belts : two-point, three-pointt and special belts with i indifferent versions and technologie technologies like STATIC, ALR, ELR and bucklebuckles.
Fasching’s gglobal product portfolio includes auautomatic locking retractors, emergency locking retractors, two-point belt systems, three-point belt system, buckles, and speciaspecial solutions like H-belts, bicycle tethtethers, fall protection belts, YoYo belts and five-point belt systemsystems.
Harald PesPessl, Sales Director and Authorised Officer, Fasching Salzburg GGmbH, told Auto
ComponentsIndiaComponen that, “We would like to point India as a switch to broadcastb our business prospects. Keeping India as a base, we couldco cover the South East Asian markets.m For the past 4 to 5 years we have been selling 60,000-80,000 seat belts in India. Setting up a manufacturing base in India will open new avenues for us. Currently we have only 1 manufacturing plant in Austria and India will become our second manufacturing location. To start with, we would target the commercial vehicle segmentbuses - as this zone has huge numbers. We are planning to localise 99.9% and this will indeed give us a cost advantage. We would also be tagged as one of the local suppliers.”
Fasching plans to produce seat belts with technical inputs from the parent company and supply them to buses, mini buses and mini vans. The target group would be tier-2 and tier-1 suppliers. Around 80% of its supply will go to tier-2 suppliers and 15% to tier-1 suppliers and the remaining 5% will be balanced equally.
“We are supplying safety products to the customers. We will work with seat manufacturers on how to structure the seat, position the retractor and make it function flawless. Unless we get the required, layout our seat belt will not function properly. As we sell the product of safety we need to
double verify the things before going on with the order book instructions,” Pessl said.
Indian market is still at a nascent stage in adopting safety products delivered as a stand-alone feature, though seat belts are mandatory for passenger cars. But it would have been better the regulation getting extended to buses, especially intercity buses, with a deadline for compliance.
The manufacturer highlighted that “Mercedes, Volvo and others are the players who could direct the Indian market to their set standards. We can only manufacture and supply the product. As an extended move we could explain our product needs with certain videos. The difference between twopoint and three-point seat belts could be explained. During 2004-2005, the ratio of two-point to three-point seat belts was 70:30. Today it is 50:50 accompanied by the European norms. Four years down the line, we foresee the same ratio to be 20:80 (Two-point:three-point),” Pessl said.
In the near future, the company is not expecting any big seat belt business in the local city buses. But the intercity buses will be mechanised with seat belts very soon in India, he said. “Passenger car segment is not a rocket science for us. We have capabilities except for the pretensioners. But pretensioners are only for premium cars like BMW, Audi, Mercedes and Volvo. Small car segments do not need them. Though car segment is not going to be our immediate priority, we are open-minded,” Pessl said.