Local fuel pump maker fights Bosch to win business

SHANGHAI -- Fuel pump supplier Hui Run Electrical Machinery Co. says it expects annual sales this year to rise 17 percent to 350 million yuan ($53 million), boosted by sales of MPVs in China. The company - which also is called ACHR - makes fuel pumps for MPVs made by Nissan and Iveco in China, says Wang Jin Wu, the company's head of domestic original-equipment sales. This year, the company will supply 25,000 fuel pumps for MPVs made by Zhengzhou Nissan Automobile Co., says Wang. In 2011, sales to Zhengzhou Nissan will increase to 35,000 units, he says. ACHR was founded in 1994 in Zhejiang province. Its first plant produces up to 3.8 million fuel pumps annually. Last year, the company opened a second plant in Wenzhou, which also is in Zhejiang province. A third plant will begin production in 2011. The company's biggest competitor is German supplier Robert Bosch GmbH, says Wang. "They are very big, we are comparatively very small," he says. But this does not deter the company from winning orders, he says.ACHR's fuel pump is at least 40 percent cheaper, Wang says. But he acknowledges that ACHR produces a much higher percentage of defective pumps that have to be discarded. Of course, ACHR has to absorb the cost of those defects, Wang notes. "That's the price a small company has to pay to enter the market," he says. Still, the company has won a contract to export 100,000 fuel pumps a year to an unnamed North American automaker, starting in 2011, says Linlin Shen, general manager for international sales. Shen declined to name the customer.