As Takata fights to survive, Ningbo Joyson sees an opening

A little-known Chinese company has seized on the unprecedented global airbag crisis surrounding Japan's Takata Corp., buying a small American manufacturer in a bet that a shake-up of an oligarchic industry is under way.Founded in 2004 by entrepreneur Wang Jianfeng, Ningbo Joyson Electronic Corp. has grown into one of China's largest suppliers of automotive components, counting General Motors and Volkswagen AG among its major customers.The company bought U.S.-based airbag supplier Key Safety Systems for $920 million in cash from private equity firms in February, three months after U.S. regulators fined Takata and ordered it to phase-out airbag inflator propellant linked to as many as 11 deaths.Sweden's Autoliv Inc., Japan's Daicel Corp., Germany's ZF Friedrichshafen AG and Key Safety are among companies that have ramped up production to supply automakers that need to replace at least 66 million Takata inflators and equip future models with airbags that safety regulators are more confident in.Takata, meanwhile, could face billions of dollars in potential compensation to cover carmakers' recall costs and has hired outside advisers to draft a restructuring plan."It's very difficult for Takata to recover from this and the company may be facing a bankruptcy crisis," Tang Yuxin, Joyson's CEO, said in a phone interview. "All of this has given us a heaven-sent opportunity to enter the industry. What was a market split among four is now shared among three players, so the opportunities naturally have increased a lot."The global market for driver-assistance features such as collision warning and emergency auto braking in cars is projected to double to $17 billion in annual revenue by 2021, according to researcher IHS Automotive. Within the broader auto-safety components market, airbags are dominated by the trio of Takata, Autoliv and ZF's TRW. Despite being home to the world's largest market for vehicle sales, China has yet to produce a globally competitive automaker or parts supplier.Joyson has ambitions to change this. By integrating its existing drive-control systems with Key Safety's safety technology, Joyson aims to minimize injuries and deaths by detecting possible collisions and automatically triggering brakes and deploying airbags, Tang said.Key Safety, which was already ramping up inflator capacity two years earlier than scheduled before Joyson's acquisition, probably will boost revenue this year by 25 percent to more than $2.5 billion, half of which will come from the airbag business, according to Tang.Challenging Leaders

As Takata fights to survive, Ningbo Joyson sees an opening

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