Bosch and Mahle plan sale of joint turbocharger business

The joint subsidiary was founded in 2008. With a total of around 1’400 employees, it develops and produces turbochargers for manufacturers of passenger cars and commercial vehicles. Production is largely based in St. Michael, Austria and in Shanghai, China. In Germany, BMTS also has a presence at two further locations in Stuttgart and Blaichach. The international market for turbochargers is also expected to continue to grow in the years ahead as the trend toward smaller engines fitted with turbochargers, especially for hybrid drives, remains strong. BMTS has already benefited from this market trend. While that sounds like a prime reason to stay in business, the company is not yet large enough to achieve sustainable success in this market environment. “Large production quantities and the associated economies of scale represent a critical competitive advantage,” says Dr. Rolf Bulander, Chairman of the Business Sector Mobility Solutions at Bosch. “Despite bulk orders received from renowned customers, the associated high capacity utilization at our plants, and above-average growth rates, present sales volumes at BMTS are still too low in comparison with our larger competitors and must be further expanded.” For this reason, further investments are needed to achieve the company size required in the market. And the companies do not intend to drive forward the further expansion of BMTS themselves, as both parent companies have decided to focus their investments primarily on new areas of development.