Thai Auto Parts Supplier AAPICO Hitech Steps Up Overseas Business Expansion

AAPICO Hitech, a major Thai auto parts supplier, is enhancing its operations by strengthening its overseas activities and joint ventures with foreign suppliers. The company’s automobile parts business accounts for 70% of all sales. AAPICO has been focusing on supplying automakers in Thailand; however, the company began supplying VinFast, an emerging local automaker in Vietnam, and made Sakthi Global Auto Holdings (SGAH), a UK-based automobile parts supplier, its wholly-owned subsidiary in 2019, revealing that AAPICO is stepping up overseas operations. These trends could be AAPICO’s efforts to reduce its dependence on the home market. Part of the revision of the company’s organizational structure for overseas business development was making SGAH a wholly-owned subsidiary in October 2019. AAPICO took an equity stake in SGAH in 2017 and has been involved in the company’s management ever since. SGAH, based on the former auto parts division of the Sakthi Group of India, operates plants in India, the US, China and Portugal.

In October 2019, AAPICO signed a memorandum of understanding to establish AAPICO Hyojin Autotech in Thailand as a joint venture with South Korean jig maker Hyojin Autotech and Malaysian white body engineering firm Triumphant Project Management (TPMSB). The primary purpose of the joint venture is to supply jigs to automakers in ASEAN, using the technology of AAPICO’s two partners. In the future, AAPICO intends to use this business as a foothold for global expansion.