Bosch Ltd to increase manufacturing in India - CFO

By VarunVyas Hebbalalu and Aleef Jahan C S

BENGALURU (Reuters) - Bosch Ltd, the Indian arm of German automotive supplier Robert Bosch GmbH, is looking to boost manufacturing in India over the next two to four years, the company's financial chief said on Tuesday.

The technology supplier plans to increase the percentage of goods produced locally in India to bring down its imports of components, which had led to an increase of 12% in spending on traded goods last quarter.

"Currently, we have roughly 54% traded goods and 46% manufactured goods," CFO Karin Gilges said in a press conference, adding Bosch plans to change this ratio in favour of the manufactured goods to align with country's "local for local, in India" ambitions.

Bosch is expecting sales for fiscal 2024 to grow by nearly 15% as it expects to benefit from a rise in demand for pricier vehicles in the country.

The Indian market is seeing growing demand for more expensive automobiles such as sport-utility vehicles (SUVs), which accounted for more than half of the country's record 4 million passenger vehicle sales in fiscal year 2023, data showed in April.

Bosch's process of bringing new technology to the Indian market will initially involve finished goods, followed by the localisation of individual components, Gilges added.

(Reporting by Varun Vyas and Aleef Jahan in Bengaluru; Editing by Shweta Agarwal)