PSA expands spare parts business in China

Groupe PSA is acquiring a controlling interest in Longstar to further expand the spare parts business in the Chinese automotive market.

Longstar is a regional automotive parts wholesaler based in China’s Fujian Province. It will thus contribute to enlarging Groupe PSA’s geographical coverage, with Jian Xin based in the Shanghai region and UAP expanding from Shandong province. With two master warehouses and 40 hubs, Longstar delivers a catalogue of 10,000 parts from 18 international suppliers to 4,000 independent repairers.

PSA Aftermarket’s multi-brand strategy, one of the pillars of the Push to Pass strategic plan, aims at fulfilling all customers’ aftersales expectations worldwide, regardless of their purchasing power and the make and age of their vehicle. This strategy is based on two pillars: a wide multi-brand parts offering and a multi-brand repair network, Euro Repar Car Service.

With the help of Longstar, Groupe PSA will gain access to a competitive, efficient distribution system meeting the highest market standards. The objective is to accelerate growth in sales of multi-brand parts, particularly of the Eurorepar range. The Eurorepar range in China already includes 17 product families, covering 55 per cent of the needs of independent garages. Through its existing customer base, Longstar will also contribute to the expansion of the Euro Repar Car Service network in China, which already amounts to 480 garages after just 18 months.

With 4,000 workshops expected by 2023, China will be the biggest contributor to the worldwide deployment of the network, which is expected to total 10,000 workshops by that time. Carlos Gomes, Executive Vice President, China and ASEAN, said Groupe PSA was on the offensive in China, not only for new car sales, but for all Push to Pass objectives. “The aftermarket is one of PSA’s successes in China and this third initiative will give us the opportunity to accelerate this success,” he added.

According to Christophe Musy, Senior Vice President, PSA Aftermarket, China will soon be the world’s biggest aftersales market and “we have set ourselves very high ambitions there”. This is the reason why the company is already securing strong market positions and ensuring wide geographical coverage of the market. Groupe PSA has a partnership with Dongfeng Motor for passenger cars in China though there are a host of challenges ahead in a market that is slowing down. Further, PSA has not quite done as well as it would have liked in China even while it is making good headway in the parts and service business.

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