ZF Group aims to quadruple revenues to €3 billion, sees India amongst the fastest growing market this decade

Besides boosting exports, the expanding Indian market will help ZF quadruple its local revenues to EUR3 billion by the end of the decade, making it among the fastest growing markets for ZF, Holger Klein, Member of the Board of Management, and head of India and Asia Pacific region, ZF, told ET.

Klein said, India has a lot of tailwind, “much deserved” after the crisis for a couple of years.

“Everybody is back, energy is high, people are trying to catch up with what they missed over the last few years and it is quite visible in the business too,” Klein said. “India will become the most dynamic economy in the world – in terms of GDP growth – and ZF has all enablers in place to participate in this growth.”

Having a presence in the country for close to six decades, the presence of ZF was “very fragmented,” said Klein, hence India was carved out as an independent region a few years ago to

the local management to take quick decisions and the results are quite visible under the ‘One ZF approach’.

“We doubled down on India several years back and we have seen a 20% compounded annual growth rate and we aim to quadruple our business in the country in the coming decade to about €3 billion,” he asserted.

ZF Group believes the industry is facing a threefold transformation – from e-mobility, autonomous mobility and the rising role of software on wheels and these transformations are playing out in India too. The value chain is getting restructured and ZF has aligned to this transition in India with local R&D set up, a base for software exports and also parts exports.

“There is a clear roadmap to accelerate localization and use India for sourcing and development capabilities for the global markets. We learnt it a hard way over the last few years to diversify the supply chain amid disruption. Earlier it was like clock work, today one doesn’t want to be too dependent on one source, in this India gains,” he explained.

In India, ZF is one of the leading suppliers of technology solutions and services that is shaping mobility trends in the country. The Group has been operating on the subcontinent for over six decades.

Garnering €700 million at present, ZF has three subsidiaries, four joint venture partners, and eight engineering centres employing over 13000 employees. It has steadily grown its manufacturing footprint to 18 manufacturing locations across India.

The ZF Group is a key supplier of supplies of transmissions, axle systems, chassis and suspension components across trucks and light vehicle industry.

The technology centers have a strong focus in the areas of electric mobility, autonomous driving, vehicle motion control, electronics, embedded software, and mechanical engineering. With these centers across the country, ZF provides strong local mechanical design and application engineering support to domestic OEMs for product development.