China now Valeo’s biggest market

French OEM supplier’s foreign sales exceed domestic ones

In the first quarter of 2014, French component maker Valeo's China sales rose 35% year-on-year to €290m (2.5bn yuan) thanks to the booming demand for light vehicles.

At the Beijing Auto Show, Valeo SA’s China president Edouard de Pirey declared the country had become the company’s number one market by sales, comprising fully 13% of global sales, predicting continued growth through 2014.

“Our order intake in China has been very high and continues to grow very fast. So we are confident that our sales in China will double every four years”, said Pirey. Indeed, the components producer is already investing 1bn yuan ($160m) into China every year and has opened three R&D centres and ten product development centres across the country to date.