How India and China are reshaping Africa's auto parts industry

Source: Freepik

While the US and Europe remain the largest markets by total value, the velocity of growth and the emergence of new manufacturing hubs are driving a geographic rebalancing toward the new growth frontier of India, Africa, and the Middle East.

China and India have advanced beyond being low-cost producers of passenger, commercial and industrial vehicles, and are becoming the primary architects of global mobility across all sectors. In 2025, China produced a record 34.53 million vehicles, maintaining its leading global position for the 17th consecutive year. More critically, China now accounts for 35.6% of the entire global automotive market share. In South Africa, nearly 50% of all passenger vehicles sold are now manufactured in Asia.

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In addition to its growing prominence in passenger vehicles, India has solidified its position as the world’s largest tractor producer, second-largest bus manufacturer, and third-largest heavy truck manufacturer. Overall, Indian vehicle exports rose 19% in 2025, reaching 5.3 million units. While car ownership remains relatively low, at roughly 22 per 1,000 people, India already has approximately 295 million vehicles on the road, with massive potential for future growth.

However, it is not just the export market where Asian original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are dominating; they are building local centres of gravity to support booming domestic demand. Infrastructure development is also accelerating. For example, road systems in India are expanding rapidly to accommodate strong economic growth and rising car ownership, with 80,000km added to the highway system every year.

This manufacturing expansion is creating strong trailing demand and significant growth potential for aftermarket parts, and intersects with powerful trends in Africa. In several African markets, Chinese and Indian vehicle brands now account for nearly 70% of light vehicle sales. This is fundamentally changing the aftermarket parts landscape, as more vehicles move away from legacy European specifications.

The African market is also characterised by a heavy reliance on used passenger vehicles. In South Africa, for instance, more than six million passenger cars are currently out of warranty. This ageing fleet dynamic means owners have shifted their spend from official dealerships to independent workshops, where the average vehicle age creates a more parts-intensive lifecycle.

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Furthermore, new right-to-repair legislation in South Africa has stripped away monopolies historically held by OEMs, allowing independent workshops to compete for service business. This has directly increased demand for non-OEM, high-quality aftermarket parts.

Against this backdrop, a lack of local manufacturing capacity creates a sustained, high-volume demand for quality replacement parts. Rather than exporting parts from Europe, established aftermarket manufacturers are decentralising operations and establishing manufacturing capabilities closer to these centres of gravity, while developing product ranges aligned with local vehicle populations and operating conditions.

Boasting globally competitive, high-quality production capabilities across both value and premium segments, and benefiting from structurally lower manufacturing costs than Europe and Latin America, India has become a critical hub for parts manufacturing, particularly for Africa. The Middle East (GCC) increasingly acts as a transit hub between Asia and Africa, facilitating this shift.

With the velocity of change occurring faster than many European players anticipate, aftermarket manufacturers need to move closer to the markets where growth is happening and localise supply chains accordingly. Adapting to this new paradigm requires a multi-brand strategy and intelligent logistics, ensuring sufficient stock is available both in-country and in transit to serve diverse customer needs reliably.

This approach also empowers local teams with greater autonomy in decision-making, based on regional market conditions and long-term vision, while maintaining mobility uptime.

Africa will play an increasingly important role in this realignment, as countries such as Morocco emerge as gateways for near-shoring parts and vehicle manufacturing to the European market. In 2025, Morocco overtook South Africa as the continent’s leading vehicle producer, with annual output exceeding one million units.

For established aftermarket manufacturers, the shift toward emerging markets is not simply about expansion. It represents a fundamental restructuring of business models to respond to the powerful forces reshaping the global automotive aftermarket.

The question for aftermarket manufacturers is no longer whether global growth patterns have shifted, but whether their organisations are structured to compete in the markets where growth is now occurring.