Gabriel India, part of tier 1 supplier Anand Group has signed a technical collaboration and alliance agreement with the $1.5 billion (Rs 12,370 crore) Dutch-based Inalfa Roof Systems (Inalfa) to manufacture sunroofs in India.
As part of the understanding, Gabriel India has initially formed a wholly-owned subsidiary christened Inalfa Gabriel Sunroof Systems (IGSS), which will manufacture sunroofs for passenger vehicles at its new plant near Chennai that will begin operations by March 2024 at a projected investment of $22 million (Rs 181 crore).
The intention is that in the future IGSS will be converted into a joint venture with Inalfa picking up 51 percent stake in the company.
Anjali Singh, Executive Chairperson, Anand Group said, “The partnership supports the government’s Atmanirbhar manufacturing drive. It provides our OEM customers with a domestic supply chain for sunroofs and expands Gabriel’s product range. This will create over 250 direct and indirect jobs in India.”
Linda Gao, CEO, Inalfa Group said, “For Inalfa this is a great opportunity to enter into the growing automotive market in India with a well-established partner.”
In recent years, rising aspirations, the Covid-led impetus for personal mobility, coupled with higher consumer awareness of more advanced features of passenger vehicles such as connectivity and voice control, has created a strong demand for sunroofs in India. With some OEMs seeing one in five cars sold coming with such fitments that are agnostic to a vehicles powertrain.
Interestingly, some OEMs including Gabriel customers are seeing close to around 40 percent of their PV sales come with models equipped with sunroofs.
The partners say industry assessments project that automotive sunroof sales in India could cross well over 7 lakh units this calendar year as against 5 lakh units in 2022. The global automotive sunroof market is expected to reach $13.6 billion (Rs 112,519 crore) with a CAGR of 9.3 percent between 2010 and 2030.
