This made 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 percent to around 2,700 associates.
Simon Song, managing director of Bosch Malaysia, sees good opportunities for future business: “The progressive growth of the IoT (Internet of things) industry means momentous change and huge new potential for businesses. In this area, Bosch is now making our products web-enabled 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 added, “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.”
Simon Song, managing director of Bosch Malaysia.
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 Simon 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.
In 2016, Bosch was presented the Safety Technology Award: Innovative Motorcycle Technology for Safer Riding by ASEAN NCAP, recognising the company’s continuous effort in innovating safer riding with two-wheeler technologies such as motorcycle antilock braking system (ABS), motorcycle stability control (MSC), and side view assist.
With around 18 road fatalities per day recorded in 2015 in Malaysia according to the World Health Organization, the country has the third highest road traffic fatality rate in Southeast Asia.
More than 60 percent of road accidents involves motorcyclists.
“The vision of Bosch for the future of mobility is ‘zero accidents, zero emissions, and zero stress’. We will continue to advocate vehicle safety awareness to the grassroots via initiatives similar to the first Auto Women’s Workshop that we hosted in line with the ‘One Wrong Part Ruins Everything’ campaign,” said Song.
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.
The Automotive Aftermarket division saw healthy sales growth in 2016, due to the success of its new range of flat-blade wipers and lubricants.
