On the 9th November of this year, the Chinese Automotive manufacturer BYD (Build Your Dreams) invited their core suppliers to a “Core Supplier Convention" in Shenzhen, China. From a base of 12.000 suppliers, only 230 have been invited and one of them was KOSTAL. Lei Yu (CSO KOSTAL Asia), Xu Xiaofei (Sales Director KOSTAL Asia) and Zhang Yichao (Sales Account Manager BYD) followed that invitation and represented KOSTAL at the meeting.
Main focus of the conference were the BYD targets and strategy for 2023. Therefore, they plan to produce a volume of 5 Million vehicles in the upcoming year in eight production sites. Three of these sites will also operate as R&D location.
BYD wants to act as a reasonable company with a sincere and down-to-earth way of working also in the cooperation with their suppliers. The company sees its speed as one of its greatest competitive advantages. BYD now plans to expand its business internationally.
The supplier base is planned to be concentrated, in fact they plan to double their sales volume, but reduce the number of suppliers to a half. For that a supplier system will be implemented, which follows a defined set of rules and is supposed to be fair and transparent.
KOSTAL of course intends to be part of this future supplier base and the foundation has been set for that: For its performance of the year 2022 KOSTAL Asia was awarded with the “Special Contribution Award" during this conference. That should be motivation to continue being a reliable partner and even intensify our efforts in cooperation with BYD in the future.
