Bosch’s 2009 sales saw a 20% decrease, only reaching €22 billion, but the company predicts that revenue will return to the pre-crisis level of 2007 by 2012, as Bernd Bohr, chief of the car parts division declared at a conference ahead of the new Delhi Motor Show.
"Inventory adjustments have taken place in 2009 and [are] not likely to be repeated in 2010. We see continued growth in emerging markets." Bohr continued to say, according to the cited source.
However, he added that the recovery in the already developed markets such as the US, Europe and Japan would take longer, and sales there would likely touch 2007 levels as late as 2015 or 2016.
Last year, in its struggle to cope with the global financial crisis , the company was forced to cut jobs both in its home country, Germany and abroad. This negative situation has also affected other automotive part suppliers, such as Swedish company Autoliv (the world’s biggest airbag and seat belt manufacturer), which was forced to lay-off 820 of its workers.
But unlike other comapnies that have not (yet) released a business plan aimed at finacial recovery, Bosch has developed a stategy for becoming more profitable. According to just-auto, a part of this plan is a €298 million investment in expanding the company’s research and development capacities, investment which is to be made in India between the current year and 2012.
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