Page 14 - ITATUBE Journal 1 2020

Market information
with diameters up to 90 mm are mainly applied.
Since 2017, after many years of stable growth, the annual world car sales figure was declining 2018 (-1%) and 2019 (- 4%). 2020e due to the corona pandemic is expected to materialize another significant decline (-16%) of the world car sales (Figure 10).
The automotive industry is char- acterized by very global supply chain systems, demanding by its just in time deliveries. The car
sales figures 2020 dramatically fell apart (e.g. China minus 82% this February) and many OEM and supplier’s production plants were shut down. This April 2020 the world automotive industry is almost totally shut down. Some suppliers report production levels in April and May 2020 of only 20% to 30% of the originally planned production figures. Starting with the Chinese production plants, now also some European and other countries are planning to restart production in May 2020.
Figure 10: World Car Sales (Mio. units) Source: gathered from Statista, PCA, Bloomberg, Bain
Anyhow many countries, due to the ongoing corona pandemic, still will not be able to restart its industries. Therefore, it will be a great challenge to restart the complex global supply chains in a reliable way.
Analysts from various well reputed organisations show impressively (Figure 11) how they anticipate the world car sales development throughout 2020. This so called probable scenario was estab- lished under the condition that the automotive industry will reli- ably restart in May 2020 without further delays due to the corona epidemic. It is assumed, that after the dramatic cutbacks in April and May (ab. 70% of original values), the sales volumes will rapidly recover until September 2020.
The tube and pipe industry sup- plying the automotive industry faces even more challenges if the ramp up would not perform as steep as stipulated in this study. The industry is used to large pro- duction lot sizes which will sig-
Figure 11: World Car Production (Mio. units) 2020 Source: IMC, PCA, Bloomberg, Bain & Company
ITAtube Journal No1/July 2020
14