Having previously released profiles on Hella and AL, Driving Vision News now present this Valeo profile.
Valeo, a publicly-traded corporation on the French Stock Exchange, are one of the world’s top 15 automotive suppliers. Their two largest shareholders are Pardus, a hedge fund group with a stake of just under 20% and French institutions with 8%. Their main competitors include Denso, Bosch, Continental, and Hella.
The Group is fully focused on the design, production and sale of components, systems and modules for cars and trucks, both on the original equipment market and the aftermarket.
Valeo employed, end of 2008, 51,200 employees, at their 133 production sites and 67 R&D centres.
Valeo had operating revenue of €8.8 billion in 2008, a 9% reduction from 2007. They still spend 5.5% of their operating revenue on research and development of new products in 10 branches.
Although sales were down for 2008, Valeo had a busy year securing Advanced Driver Assist System (ADAS) deals with several new models.
Valeo are organised in 3 domains: Power Efficiency, Comfort Enhancement, and Driving Assistance.
Driving Assistance domain gather 3 branches: Lighting Systems, Wiper Systems and Interior Controls.
This domain was awarded PACE in 2007 and 2008, and signed a great deal of new business in 2008-2009 in a difficult automotive industry. It is now the worldwide market leader for Ultrasonic Parking Assistance with a major position in Blind Spot detection and Lane Departure Warning.
Valeo Lighting Systems is a worldwide leader in automotive lighting market with operating revenue of €1.15b and total sales of the Valeo-Ichikoh-ValeoSylvania alliance of € 2.05b in 2007. They compete with 3 other big players — Koito, AL-Automotive Lighting, and Hella. VLS are heavily involved in cutting-edge research, development, and commercialisation of safety systems and components such as AFS, Adaptive lighting, and LED frontlighting. The product capabilities are also focused on styling innovations such as MicOptics, and on new lighting technology and applications such as high-efficiency light guides and LED DRL.
Valeo Group, Driving Assistance domain and Lighting Systems are presented with their strategy, their organization, their technologies, and their financial results. Valeo’s history is also presented with the creation in 1923, the integration of new activities until 1980, the 1980-2000 great growth thanks Noel Goutard strategy and stopping growth from 2000 to 2009.
Valeo Lighting Systems SWOT are presented emphasizing the strength of the worldwide leading presence of the Valeo-Ichikoh-ValeoSylvania alliance, and also the relatively weak market position in Xenon/LED mainly due to the weak presence in the premium car makers.
Driving Vision News close the report with 2 interviews of:
– Driving Assistance director, Joachim Mathes
– Valeo Lighting Systems R&D director, Jean-Paul Charret.