Aisin buys PH Toyota parts maker

A Japanese supplier of automotive parts has taken the helm of a now former member of the Toyota Group, planning to invest P1.2 billion for a new manufacturing line while improving the currently “underutilized” production capacity.

Through a joint venture signing on Thursday night, Aisin Seiki Co. Ltd. bought a major stake in Toyota Autoparts Philippines Inc. (TAP), a large player in the Philippine autoparts industry for nearly three decades now.

Aisin used to have only a 31 percent equity participation in TAP, while Toyota Motor Corp. (TMC) held 61 percent, and Toyota Motor Philippines Corp. (TMP) had 5 percent.

Aisin is now switching seats with TMC, changing TAP’s official name to Toyota Aisin Philippines Inc. TAP then becomes part of Aisin Group’s more than 200 companies around the globe.

Even prior to the deal, TAP has already been considered  a major player in the auto parts industry, according to Alfred Ty, TMP vice chair, in a press briefing that followed the signing ceremony.

TAP had annually produced hundreds of thousands of manual transmission units which were installed in Toyota cars such as the Vios model, then exported to markets in Asia, South Africa and South America.

Aisin president Yasumori Ihara, through an English translator, said that TAP’s new leadership would focus on improving the current production, while adding another production line for automatic transmission units.

TAP would be investing P1.2 billion to put up this production line for automatic transmission units, eyeing a production volume of 400,000 sets per year. The timetable for this new line, as well as its export markets, are yet to be announced amid ongoing discussions.

“Unfortunately, today, the capacity utility [for manual transmission here] is not so high. So our idea is to move a big part of our production from Japan or Thailand to TAP, so that you would be able to increase your capacity utilization without any investment,” Ihara said.

TAP president Hiroshi Fukutani said that actual annual production of manual transmission units reaches 250,000 units.

Moreover, Ihara said that the Aisin has been “very busy” with the automatic transmission business lately, noting that they’ve been always looking for another company that could support the business.

He said TAP could benefit for this, in the event that manual transmission units get phased out of the market. He couldn’t give a timeline for the phaseout, given that tens of millions of passenger cars still use manual transmission.

“This time we decided to do the automatic transmission production here and we think it’s going to be a win-win for both Aisin and TAP,” he said.