Bosch (ROBG.UL) CEO Stefan Hartung said at a news conference on Thursday that he expects the chip scarcity to ease dramatically in the second half of this year and that he hopes firms may resume normal operations by 2023.
The world’s largest automaker must improve its software capabilities while limiting redundancies among the 80,000-plus employees whose jobs are entwined with diesel technology within its 400,000-strong workforce.
However, due to a dearth of chips, its mobility solutions sector, which includes the automotive components segment that accounts for the majority of Bosch’s sales, suffered slower growth.
“Last year we felt very clearly that we didn’t have enough chips to meet demand. That will become better in 2022, significantly so in the second half,” Hartung said, pointing out that even the machines to make chips needed chips to work, and so were in short supply. “Hopefully in 2023 we can work at the pace we want to.”
Bosch was not planning any further investments in its own chip production beyond the already announced 400 million euros it has put into chip production sites in Dresden, Stuttgart, and Penang.
The company predicted that 85 million cars would be produced in Europe this year, up from the 80-odd million made in 2021 but far below the 92 million which rolled off assembly lines in 2019.
