PARIS (Reuters) – Plastic Omnium, which on Monday reported a 35% jump in its first-half sales, expects price battles between automakers over electric cars to compensate for the slowdown in order intake seen particularly in Europe.
The automotive supplier, a specialist in bumpers and petrol tanks but committed to diversifying into hydrogen and lighting, also confirmed its annual objectives, on the strength of a new record in order intake over the last six months.
On the Paris Bourse, the Plastic Omnium share gained 6.8% at 07:41 GMT, at the top of the SBF 120 index.
“I think manufacturers will have no choice but to go in that direction if they want to keep the volumes they need,” said Laurent Favre, managing director of the automotive supplier, about the price cuts.
“I imagine that our customers will have a financing or pricing policy that will probably be a little more aggressive than it has been in recent quarters,” he added during a press conference call.
The CEO of Plastic Omnium stressed that the Chinese manufacturers and the American Tesla, among the most aggressive on prices, continued to do well with high volumes and that as such, his group was well positioned to benefit from this growth given that it outperformed the Chinese market by 10.6 points in the first half.
China also became the world’s largest car exporter this year.
“We are lucky to work with everyone (Chinese and Europeans), that means we also work with those who export”, continued Laurent Favre. “If they are the ones who sell the cars in Europe (…), we produce in China for them, so we are very pragmatic.”
(Gilles Guillaume report, edited by Kate Entringer)
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