Bosch strengthens footprint in Malaysia
KUCHING: Leading global supplier of technology and services Bosch ended its 2016 fiscal year with close to RM610 million in consolidated sales, making Malaysia the second largest revenue contributor for Bosch in Southeast Asia for the second consecutive year.
The company’s headcount in 2016 grew by four per cent to around 2,700 associates.
Simon Song, managing director of Bosch Malaysia, sees good opportunities for future business.
“The progressive growth of the IoT industry means momentous change and huge new potential for businesses. In this area, Bosch is now making our products webenabled and ready to provide our customers transformative solutions that help to make a difference in enhancing the competitiveness of their businesses.
“This will be key to Bosch to further our growth in the country,” he said in a statemeny yesterday.
“In addition to developing and offering connectivity-based solutions tailored to customer needs, we lead by example as users of connected technology with the gradual retrofitting of our manufacturing plants with Industry 4.0 modules to increase our efficiency and productivity.”
To further strengthen Malaysia as a location for global manufacturing as well as research and development, the Bosch Group invested close to 138 million euros into the country in the past five years – over RM160 million (35 million euros) alone in 2016.
“To meet growing customer demand for our products, the increased investment was channeled into upscaling our production capacity,” said Song.
For example, the company directed investments into growing the engineering team of its Car Multimedia division, and enhancing manufacturing operations for its surface mount technology (SMT).
The new SMT facility, which was opened in March last year, aims to increase production volume to support rising market demand, as well as facilitate more research and development projects.
The expansion will enable Bosch to supply a broader array of services for customers locally, regionally and globally.
With the launch of a Bosch branded virtual store Bosch also embarked on e-Commerce in Malaysia in 2016 – a first for Bosch in Southeast Asia.
This venture has opened up new business opportunities with customers, allowing the company to expand its reach directly to customers, beyond its traditional business-to-business model.
Having launched its first online store on Lazada with the Automotive Aftermarket, Power Tools and Security Systems divisions, the company expanded its presence in e-Commerce to 11Street. In 2017, Bosch aims to enter other key virtual shopping platforms in Malaysia.
Looking at development of Bosch business divisions in Malaysia, it said the Mobility Solutions business sector recorded the highest growth for Bosch in Malaysia.
Driven by market trends of connectivity, autonomous driving, and expansion of production and engineering capacity, the Car Multimedia division achieved double-digit growth.
Looking ahead towards connected devices, the division will focus on the production of Connectivity Control Units (CCU) for markets in China, Europe and North America to facilitate automated emergency calls (eCall) in cars and motorcycles.
The Automotive Steering division, earmarked to be Bosch’s manufacturing production hub in Southeast Asia for Mechanical Steering Gears (MSG), similarly recorded a double digit growth, mainly attributed to the strong demand for MSG in Japanese vehicles worldwide.
The Power Tools division saw stable growth in 2016, supported by its e-Commerce business platform and innovative marketing concept of the Bosch Power Box, a mobile shop at Forest City located in Johor Baharu, which is one of the biggest construction sites in Malaysia.
The Drive and Control Technology division continued to face a challenging market in 2016, reflecting the global decline in mechanical engineering, as well as the oil and gas sector, in addition to the carving out of the company’s pneumatic business. Overall, sales in the division took a slight dip compared to the previous year.