Bosch Gmbh, the global automotive technology and services supplier, opened a new plant on Wednesday under its Car Multimedia division in Anhui province, with a total investment exceeding 275 million yuan (43.0 million U.S. dollars).

The Wuhu plant will mainly provide infotainment, instrument clusters and connectivity control units for the Chinese market, and about 900 employees will work in the 18,200-square-meter area, of which 160 will be committed to research and development this year, according to the company.

"The remarkable growth of China's automotive market has nurtured Bosch's stable growth. Over the past 11 years, Bosch Car Multimedia division has achieved an average annual compound growth rate of 30 percent," said Theo Drijfhout, Asia Pacific president of the Car Multimedia division. "With this plant opening, Bosch Car Multimedia will actively expand the scale of production capacity to meet the rising needs of local customers for connected driving," he said.

The establishment of the Wuhu plant has further enhanced the business presence of the Bosch Car Multimedia division in the local market. In the future, the newly opened Wuhu plant will serve as the central production base of Bosch Car Multimedia in China, while Suzhou will remain as the main location for sales and R&D.

The Sino-German joint venture in Wuhu will continue to focus on clusters and connectivity control units. The whole network will be concentrated under one roof to jointly support Bosch's efforts in connected mobility and to meet the domestic market's diversified needs.

Bosch is operating 38 production bases in 15 cities across the country, with a total of about 60,000 employees working in 62 companies. The company realized a historical sales revenue record of 113.4 billion yuan (17.7 billion U.S. dollars) in China last year, representing a jump of nearly 24 percent year-on-year.

Peter Tyroller, the Bosch board member responsible for Asia Pacific, said, "We will continue the investment into the local market, and speeding up in the internet of things field in China."

Chen Yudong, president of Bosch (China) Investment, said, "Bosch is constantly stepping up investment in China. In the past decade, about 4 billion yuan's investment was added each year."

Bosch Car Multimedia entered the Chinese market in 2005 with its first products - automobile radios - which the division started delivering to customers in 2006.

Over the past decade, Bosch Car Multimedia has witnessed the upgrade of automotive consumption in China and has continuously expanded and upgraded its product portfolio to meet the needs of the local market and its customers.

In the internet of things era, connectivity is rapidly crossing over into the automotive industry. In the future, Bosch will further develop new digital displays, voice assistance, haptic feedback using the sense of touch and other human machine interface technologies.

Striving toward this goal, the new Wuhu plant will further enhance Bosch China's local competence in connected driving, helping to build a safe, convenient and stress-free experience for local customers.

The future of mobility needs cutting-edge technologies and ecosystems, which requires collaboration among industry players. Bosch advocates an open and close collaboration with other companies in the industry. Bosch and Banma Technologies, a pioneering domestic provider of connected smart solutions for internet cars, joined forces in March to advance the hardware and software for vehicle infotainment and connected mobility.

Email: tanyuhan@nbd.com.cn