"India's economy is doing well. And with the good government policies, we see high growth coming in," said Akash Passey, president, ZF Group India, adding that the company has set a sales target of 3 billion euros by 2030.
ZF India ended FY24 with a revenue of 1 billion euros. The company serves the passenger car and commercial vehicles segments, and also other market segments such as construction and agricultural machinery, wind power, marine propulsion, rail drives, and test systems.
ZF Group has 18 manufacturing facilities, 10 engineering centres, and over 16,000 employees in India.
In terms of sales distribution, Europe is at 44%, North America (28%), Asia Pacific (24%), South America (3%) and Africa is at 1%.
The company generates revenue from three key segments 74% from cars and light commercial vehicles, 18% from commercial vehicles, and 8% from industrial segments including wind energy.
The group's arm, ZF Wind Power is India's largest supplier of wind turbine gearboxes. Its factory in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, is the largest plant for wind gearbox production in the world, outside China.
On Tuesday, ZF Wind Power Coimbatore became the first plant in India to roll out 50 gigawatts of wind gearboxes since inception. ZF has globally produced 200 GW of wind gearboxes so far, with 50 GW or 25% being manufactured in Coimbatore.
ZF Wind Power plans to invest 50 million euros to expand capacity of its Coimbatore unit from the present 9 GW to 12 GW by 2025. It has thus far invested 230 million euros in the facility.
"This plant is mainly for exports, and we supply a lot into the US, so the growth in the US market is supporting this plant. This is also the reason why we are investing now in increasing from 9 to 12 GW. And we are fully booked," said Felix Henseler, CEO of ZF Wind Power, adding that it took the company around 16 years to reach 50 GW capacity but given the current growth in the wind energy segment, it will take less than five years to reach the next 50 GW.
Henseler however, added that localisation is a challenge in India. "Most of the components, what we are assembling here in the plant, we are not producing by ourselves...castings, foundries, steel, and bearing manufacturers are the biggest commodities that we need."
"We have, in the economics of India, too less scrap. So, therefore, to produce our castings, we need scrap. And if you need to import scrap, it is very expensive," Henseler said, adding that energy costs are higher in India than in China.
The company exports 80% of its production from the Coimbatore plant. The plant also serves as a service centre for the company with a capacity of up to 3 MW. The company is planning to increase the capacity in the near future.
ZF Wind Power is also a big player in global offshore market and expects India's offshore wind market to pick up in the next three years.
India has a 7,600 km-long coastline which presents her a huge opportunity to ramp up offshore wind power capacity addition.
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