Abstract Whoever monopolizes the spare parts market A storm about the monopoly of auto parts is sweeping the globe. In the United States, 34 auto parts executives and 27 component manufacturers have pleaded guilty, with a penalty of more than $2.3 billion. Similar antitrust investigations are also happening...
Who monopolizes the spare parts market A storm about the monopoly of auto parts is sweeping the globe. In the United States, 34 auto parts executives and 27 component manufacturers have pleaded guilty, with a penalty of more than $2.3 billion. Similar anti-monopoly investigations are also being carried out in countries and regions such as Europe and Japan, while China on the other side of the globe is joining the storm in an "alternative" way. Different from the collusion of European and American auto parts dealers, the “monopoly†in the Chinese auto industry is reflected in the “circulation channels†of automakers for the original parts of new cars.
The anti-monopoly investigation conducted by the US Department of Justice on the auto parts business continues, and the scope of investigation and the number of companies involved are increasing. On June 3, according to the US Fortune magazine, 34 auto parts executives and 27 component manufacturers have pleaded guilty, and the total amount of penalties imposed by these companies and individuals has exceeded $2.3 billion. About RMB 14.4 billion). In addition to the criminal penalties of the US Department of Justice, these companies and individuals are also facing a number of civil lawsuits. More than 30 auto parts dealers such as Autoliv, Tokai Ricoh, and Bridgestone have paid different amounts of compensation for these lawsuits.
The US Department of Justice’s investigation has been underway for four years and is continuing. In fact, the United States is not the only country that conducts large-scale anti-monopoly investigations on auto parts manufacturers. Europe and Japan have also initiated similar anti-monopoly investigations in their respective regions, including Germany Bosch and Japan Denso. The auto parts dealer giant is involved in the storm.
Different from the United States, Japan and Europe, the Chinese auto market has different supporting suppliers because of the dispersion of the cars. Therefore, there are few similar monopolistic behaviors, but the “channel monopoly†of auto parts in the Chinese auto market is very serious. Automakers grasp the supply, channels and prices of spare parts, and spare parts suppliers, distributors and consumers are all subject to different levels of interest damage. Therefore, experts call for step-by-step relaxation of the channel control of dealers to purchase spare parts.
Over 30 families were punished by the United States
In 2009, the US auto industry experienced a baptism of change. The three major American automakers (GM, Ford, Chrysler) filed for bankruptcy protection and reorganized. At the same time, auto parts that are closely related to automakers are at stake, and more than half of auto parts manufacturers are filing for bankruptcy protection. In this process, the monopolistic behavior of many companies in the auto parts business industry has also attracted the attention of the US government. In 2010, the US Department of Justice began to investigate the price manipulation of auto parts suppliers. Both scope and scale are the largest criminal antitrust cases.
Recently, the US Department of Justice’s four-year anti-monopoly investigation on parts and components has finally made the latest progress. Currently, 34 auto parts executives and 27 component manufacturers have pleaded guilty.
But the US Department of Justice’s fines are not all. These companies and individuals are also facing a series of civil lawsuits. Among them, the most recent civil lawsuit is the three lawsuits for operating parts and components, including the direct procurement of related parts and components, and Autoliv Inc., a supplier of airbags and safety systems in Sweden. Individual consumers, the company has agreed to pay a total of $65 million in compensation to all of the above plaintiffs. Among them, the compensation for enterprises is 40 million US dollars, and the compensation for dealers and individual consumers is 6 million and 19 million US dollars respectively.
It is reported that this is the case that Autoliv was once again facing a civil lawsuit after being fined $14.5 million by the US court in 2012. In June 2012, Autoliv was fined $14.5 million by the US court for allegedly operating on seat belts, airbags and steering wheels in the US market. In addition, the manager of Autoliv named Takayoshi Matsunaga was fined $20,000 last year and sentenced to 1 year and 1 day in prison. The report said that the manager’s plea agreement contained the antitrust investigation of the US Department of Justice. Content.
Japanese auto parts dealers became the "hardest hit" in the survey. Recently, Hitoshi Hirano, the former executive director of Japanese supplier Tokai Rika Co, was sued by the federal grand jury of Detroit for allegedly meeting several other accomplices during his tenure, targeting Toyota in the United States. Orders and prices for heating control panels for cars sold in other countries were manipulated and allegedly instructed to destroy relevant evidence. According to the US Sherman Anti-Monopoly Law, Hitoshi Hirano's above-mentioned behavior will face up to 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine. It is understood that the company had already confessed to the US Department of Justice in 2008 to participate in price manipulation and was fined $17.7 million.
Coincidentally, in February of this year, Japanese tire manufacturer Bridgestone and the US Department of Justice reached an agreement that the manipulation of the sale price of auto parts violated the US Anti-Monopoly Law and agreed to pay a fine of $425 million. Auto parts dealers are involved in the most serious criminal fines in anti-monopoly investigations. At the same time, Bridgestone announced that it will take steps to prohibit employees from participating in price controls and will punish certain internal directors and executives by reducing wages and bonuses. It is said that during the period from 2001 to 2008, Bridgestone practised the supply of shock-absorbing rubber parts for a number of Japanese car companies in the US market, and conspiring to manipulate the prices of these products, including Toyota and Nissan. Fuji Heavy Industries, Isuzu and Suzuki and subsidiaries of these companies.
The US Department of Justice said that in a series of cases investigated earlier, although the specific measures and strategies are different, the executives of the companies involved often contacted by encrypting e-mail first, then talked at a remote location, and finally Destroy meeting documents to prevent disclosure.
These are just typical cases. In fact, since the survey began in 2010, a total of more than 30 auto parts suppliers have been punished by the US Department of Justice. Brent Snyder, deputy assistant justice minister of the US antitrust department, told the media: "Because these auto parts suppliers are conspiring to raise prices, consumers have to bear millions of dollars in extra expenses."
The scope of the survey, the number of companies involved, the length of the investigation, and the intensity of the investigation are the largest in history, but Fortune magazine also clearly stated: "No matter how many suppliers and executives fall. The structural tension between the automakers and their component suppliers is unlikely to be relaxed soon."
According to the analysis, the early automotive industry often cooperated with a number of spare parts suppliers, which could promote the price competition of suppliers and promote the technological progress of suppliers. However, the current status quo is auto parts suppliers. They joined forces to conspire to raise prices, resulting in monopolistic behavior, car OEMs, dealers, consumers have suffered.
Japan and Europe are in action
In fact, not only the United States, but also a series of anti-monopoly investigations against auto parts manufacturers in the more mature auto markets such as Japan and Europe.
Since 2012, the EU has started an anti-monopoly investigation of auto parts manufacturers. From the investigation of wire harnesses, occupant safety systems and bearing manufacturers, and afterwards, raid investigations were carried out on auto parts manufacturers that produce thermal energy systems, and then parts giants such as Bosch and Schaeffler were involved in antitrust investigations. The EU's anti-monopoly investigation of auto parts manufacturers shows the strength and scale of the US government.
In July 2013, the EU anti-monopoly agency imposed penalties on the four auto parts companies of Japan’s Yazaki, Germany’s Lenny, Japan’s Yasaki’s European subsidiary SY Systems Technology Co., Ltd. and Furukawa Electric Co. Form a monopoly alliance and manipulate product prices.
Japan's Yazaki Corporation is the world's largest manufacturer of automotive wiring systems. The wiring system is responsible for the transmission of functional commands from vehicle computers to various components within the vehicle. According to media reports, Sumitomo Electric, the second largest wiring system manufacturer after Yazaki, was the whistleblower of the incident. Sumitomo Electric was not punished by the EU.
On March 18 this year, six other component suppliers confessed to the cartel alliance that had conspired to form a car bearing. Five of them were punished by the European Commission, including two European suppliers and three Japanese suppliers. SKF, Schaeffler, Seiko, NFC and NTT, the penalties for SKF and Schaeffler are the heaviest, with fines of 315 million euros and 370 million euros respectively, while Seiko and NFC respectively Penalty was 624 million euros and 39.6 billion euros, and the company was fined 200 million euros.
The European Commission said that from April 2004 to July 2011, the above-mentioned suppliers secretly negotiated pricing strategies for their automotive bearing products and signed multi-party, tripartite and two-party agreements. Interestingly, the same scene as Japan's Yazaki and Sumitomo Electric of Japan was staged: Japan's Jie Tai Ge Tee took the initiative to expose the monopoly of several other suppliers, thus being exempted from the penalty of 86 million euros.
The European Commission has reduced the penalties imposed by each company based on the cooperation of various companies in the investigation of regulatory agencies. Despite this, Joaquin Almunia, head of the EU's antitrust regulator, said firmly: "We won't stop here. We are still investigating the Cartel Alliance for airbags and automotive lighting systems."
In mid-March, the German Bosch Group was also involved in the storm, saying it is cooperating with the anti-monopoly investigation conducted by the EU anti-monopoly agency for the parts industry. The Bosch Group is the number of parts manufacturers that have been ranked among the top 100 auto parts suppliers in the world for many years. Its auto business unit had revenues of US$41.7 billion in 2013.
At the same time, similar antitrust investigations are also underway in Japan. According to the reporter, in the three key components of electronic control components, electronic control modules and automatic transmissions, the global market is almost monopolized by Japan, and both Japanese and European cars are heavily dependent on Japanese manufacturing. Therefore, Japanese parts manufacturers have been investigated and punished differently in their own countries, the United States, and Europe.
In February 2010, the Japan Fair Trade Commission also launched an investigation into the auto parts price cartel. In July of the following year, the Japan Fair Trade Commission conducted a raid on seven auto parts manufacturers suspected of concluding four types of price cartels, including wipers, water tanks, engine igniters and alternators, in violation of the Anti-Monopoly Law, including electricity. Equipment, Mitsubishi Electric, Hitachi Automotive Systems, Kangnaike, Sanye, T. Rad, etc., where Denso is the world's second largest supplier of components.
It is reported that the market size of these four kinds of parts and components in Japan has reached approximately 100 billion yen (about 8 billion yuan). Seven companies including Denso are suspected of pre-arranging quotations and winning bids when participating in the procurement of the above four components. Enterprises, and this price monopoly has existed at least since 2002.
In September 2012, the Japan Fair Trade Commissioner Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Hitachi Automotive Systems, Kangnaike Corporation, Trefoil, T. Rad, which is a monopoly on the price of four types of auto parts, including radiators, generators, wipers and starters. The company imposed fines ranging from hundreds of millions of yen to one billion yen.
"Chinese-style" channel monopoly
So, is there a “monopoly†in China’s huge auto market?
According to the reporter's understanding, different from the US, Japan and Europe auto parts manufacturers to raise prices, the monopoly behavior of China's auto industry is mainly "mainframe factory monopoly spare parts sales channels." This is mainly due to the “special relationship†between car manufacturers and auto parts suppliers in different countries.
Before 2009, there was a contractual relationship between automakers and suppliers in the United States. In Detroit, the automobile city, there were a large number of spare parts suppliers around GM, Ford and Chrysler, like GM and Delphi, Ford and Visteon has a relatively close contractual relationship. In 2009, the economic crisis broke out. Under the impact of Japanese cars, the high cost of American cars was highlighted. In order to reduce costs, GM and Ford separated Delphi and Visteon respectively and began to form a “global structure†system, which made automotive parts. Become a product with a standard interface.
In Europe, vehicle manufacturers and suppliers are more equal. Because of this, it is the birth of the world's first spare parts supplier group such as the Bosch Group. The two are even in terms of technical knowledge and manufacturing capabilities.
Japanese is the so-called “tower relationshipâ€. Take Toyota as an example. Toyota divides suppliers into three categories according to the importance of the components produced by suppliers: core component suppliers, featured component suppliers and commodity component suppliers. Toyota has established a different equity relationship with it. Therefore, parts manufacturers may also get support from manufacturers in terms of technology and capital, but they are also likely to rely on manufacturers.
In China, there is no such obvious relationship. In the opinion of analysts, the Chinese auto market is full of European cars, American cars, Japanese cars, Korean cars, and independent brands. All of them have their own independent supporting systems. The whole system is scattered and independent, and it is difficult to form the above contractual relationship. Equality or towering.
On June 10, automobile analyst Jia Xinguang said in an interview with the "International Finance News" reporter that "in the Chinese auto market, the European, American and Japanese companies each have their own parts suppliers, and their own brands are a set. Independent marketers, the market share of Chinese auto parts dealers is much more dispersed than that of the US, Japan and Europe. Therefore, there is almost no monopolistic behavior of parts manufacturers in China."
However, an insider of an auto parts manufacturing company told the International Finance News reporter: "In some key components, or high-tech parts, China's auto parts industry also has a certain monopoly. "But for those companies and components that are specifically designed, the person said that it is not convenient to disclose.
For the time being, the “monopoly†of Chinese auto parts dealers has not yet been placed on the table, but the “monopoly of auto parts channels†has already caused many people in the industry and consumers to complain.
On April 10 this year, the data on “Zero Ratio†jointly issued by China Insurance Industry Association and China Automobile Maintenance Association caused extensive discussions on the Internet. The so-called "zero ratio" refers to the ratio of the sum of the prices of all parts of a commodity to the selling price of the complete commodity.
According to the "zero ratio" data, Beijing Mercedes-Benz C-class W204 coefficient is the highest, up to 1273%, that is to say, the cost of replacing all the accessories of this model is 12 times the price of this model. Experts believe that this coefficient is reasonable at around 300%, and in the “zero ratio†data of the 18 common models in this survey, the zero-to-round ratio data of 11 models is higher than 400%.
Behind the “zero ratio†data, it is highlighted that the Chinese 4S shop service system is too single. According to the "Automobile Brand Sales Management Implementation Measures", automobile brand dealers should engage in auto brand sales, after-sales service, parts supply and other activities within the scope authorized by the auto supplier. This regulation seems to regulate the auto parts market, but actually Indirectly strengthened the monopoly of domestic automobile after-sales maintenance and spare parts supply.
"This monopolistic behavior is caused by the monopoly of channels, channel supply, and spare parts pricing are all determined by the auto manufacturers, from upstream suppliers to downstream dealers, to consumers have no choice." Jia Xinguang Analysis said.
For the status quo, dealers have hardships. It is understood that at this stage, the original spare parts of the manufacturers are all supplied to their authorized dealers, and the spare parts suppliers can not bypass the automobile manufacturers and directly flow to the market. The manufacturers can realize low-priced purchases and high-priced sales, and suppliers at their upstream and downstream ends. And the dealers are in harm. At the same time, the owner of the car during the warranty period can only repair and replace the spare parts through the 4S shop, otherwise it may not be able to enjoy the after-sales service.
"Engine, gearbox, such as large parts, the owner will of course come to our store for repair and replacement, like small tires, car owners will choose to go to the market to buy, because the price and cost are lower." The dealer of the joint venture brand told the International Finance News reporter.
In the entire process of the formation of auto parts monopoly, dealers are in a more passive position. With the same product quality, 4S stores can be purchased from the market much cheaper than the manufacturers, but they have no choice. “Dealers are in the direct sales position of the consumer. The high-priced spare parts make consumers dissatisfied with the dealers, but in fact the dealers are also very passive.†Yan Jinghui, deputy general manager of Beijing Asian Games Village Auto Trading Market, accepted International Finance News reporter said in an interview.
“Now the growth rate of the national auto market is slowing down, and more and more cities are being restricted. In cities like Beijing, the density of dealers is so large, the operation is already very difficult, and now all kinds of negative factors are superimposed. Manufacturers should consider In the aspect of after-sales accessories, relax the control of 4S stores." Yan Jinghui said.
Yan Jinghui believes that it is not realistic to let auto manufacturers open the accessories channel at once. The more feasible way is that auto manufacturers still retain some of the original factory supply, and gradually release some control, so that dealers can purchase spare parts through other diversified channels. However, the manufacturer must check the quality of the dealer's purchase channels. "The market competition is becoming more and more fierce, and it has penetrated into the post-service market. Manufacturers must also consider the interests of dealers. After all, dealers must consider the issues that consumers can accept in the sales process."
Hot Led Lighting,Hot Light Bulbs,Hot Led Light Bulbs,Hot Led Lamp
Zhongshan Tiger Lighting Co.,Ltd. , https://www.tigerstreetlight.com