To serve Volkswagen including Audi initially

Turkey-based sealing provider Standard Profil opened a new plant in Guanajuato, Mexico, according to the company’s press release last month. The new facility, Standard Profil’s 10th globally, will manufacture sealing systems for automakers operating in North America. The company took nine months to complete the construction of the plant, spread on area of 32,500 square metres, and invested USD36 million. “We always aim to be closer to our customers and that’s why we are here, very close to the Automotive Global OEMs. We want to continue our success in North America as well”, said Turhan Semizer, CEO of the company.

The new plant in Mexico will produce full range of body sealing systems for Audi and Volkswagen brands and the Turkish company will also negotiate with other North America-based customers for new contracts, reports  RubberNews.com citing a statement from Werner Gehring, vice-president operations west. Gehring also mentioned that the plant currently employs 130 and anticipates the employee count to reach 700 in the next two years. Standard Profil plans to fully utilise the space until 2018; at present about half capacity is utilised.  The company plans to add enough business in the next six months to utilize the production space full. Once, the current capacity is utilised the company will plan expansion, added Gehring.

Significance: Standard Profil has made several investments since last 38 years and now the company claims to be the Europe’s second biggest sealing provider with about more than 20% of the market share, said Semizer. In addition to its plants in Mexico, the company also has facilities in Turkey, Spain, Morocco, China, South Africa, India, Russia and Bulgaria.

Mexico is witnessing an increasing level of investment both from Japanese and western automakers as the country benefits from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In addition, Mexico has signed customs agreements with many countries, including European countries, Japan and South Korea. The Mexican automotive market has recorded significant growth in terms of vehicle production over last few years. According to IHS Automotive, light-vehicle production (LV) in the country grew to 3.21 million units in 2014, up 9.7% year-on-year (y/y). We anticipate LV production to reach 4.8 million units in 2020 driven by investments from numerous automakers.

German carmaker Audi is setting up its first plant in North America in San Jose Chiapa, Mexico. The USD1.3 billion will produce Audi Q5 SUV when it starts production in mid-2016. Audi’s parent group Volkswagen operates its biggest plant in North America in Puebla, Mexico – the plant has capacity to produce more than half a million vehicle annually. Mercedes is working with rival BMW to develop supplier network in Mexico to support their upcoming production facilities in Mexico. BMW’s first plant in Mexico, located in San Luis Potosi, is scheduled to start operations in 2019 while Mercedes’s plant, being established in partnership with Renault-Nissan, and located in Aguascalientes is expected to begin production in 2017. The plant will start production of Nissan’s Infiniti brand of vehicles in 2017 and Mercedes-Benz’s brand vehicles one year later.  

Contacts

Copyright © 2025 S&P Global Inc. All rights reserved.

These materials, including any software, data, processing technology, index data, ratings, credit-related analysis, research, model, software or other application or output described herein, or any part thereof (collectively the “Property”) constitute the proprietary and confidential information of S&P Global Inc its affiliates (each and together “S&P Global”) and/or its third party provider licensors. S&P Global on behalf of itself and its third-party licensors reserves all rights in and to the Property. These materials have been prepared solely for information purposes based upon information generally available to the public and from sources believed to be reliable.
Any copying, reproduction, reverse-engineering, modification, distribution, transmission or disclosure of the Property, in any form or by any means, is strictly prohibited without the prior written consent of S&P Global. The Property shall not be used for any unauthorized or unlawful purposes. S&P Global’s opinions, statements, estimates, projections, quotes and credit-related and other analyses are statements of opinion as of the date they are expressed and not statements of fact or recommendations to purchase, hold, or sell any securities or to make any investment decisions, and do not address the suitability of any security, and there is no obligation on S&P Global to update the foregoing or any other element of the Property. S&P Global may provide index data. Direct investment in an index is not possible. Exposure to an asset class represented by an index is available through investable instruments based on that index. The Property and its composition and content are subject to change without notice.

THE PROPERTY IS PROVIDED ON AN “AS IS” BASIS. NEITHER S&P GLOBAL NOR ANY THIRD PARTY PROVIDERS (TOGETHER, “S&P GLOBAL PARTIES”) MAKE ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, FREEDOM FROM BUGS, SOFTWARE ERRORS OR DEFECTS, THAT THE PROPERTY’S FUNCTIONING WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR THAT THE PROPERTY WILL OPERATE IN ANY SOFTWARE OR HARDWARE CONFIGURATION, NOR ANY WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AS TO ITS ACCURACY, AVAILABILITY, COMPLETENESS OR TIMELINESS, OR TO THE RESULTS TO BE OBTAINED FROM THE USE OF THE PROPERTY. S&P GLOBAL PARTIES SHALL NOT IN ANY WAY BE LIABLE TO ANY RECIPIENT FOR ANY INACCURACIES, ERRORS OR OMISSIONS REGARDLESS OF THE CAUSE. Without limiting the foregoing, S&P Global Parties shall have no liability whatsoever to any recipient, whether in contract, in tort (including negligence), under warranty, under statute or otherwise, in respect of any loss or damage suffered by any recipient as a result of or in connection with the Property, or any course of action determined, by it or any third party, whether or not based on or relating to the Property. In no event shall S&P Global be liable to any party for any direct, indirect, incidental, exemplary, compensatory, punitive, special or consequential damages, costs, expenses, legal fees or losses (including without limitation lost income or lost profits and opportunity costs or losses caused by negligence) in connection with any use of the Property even if advised of the possibility of such damages. The Property should not be relied on and is not a substitute for the skill, judgment and experience of the user, its management, employees, advisors and/or clients when making investment and other business decisions.

The S&P Global logo is a registered trademark of S&P Global, and the trademarks of S&P Global used within this document or materials are protected by international laws. Any other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

The inclusion of a link to an external website by S&P Global should not be understood to be an endorsement of that website or the website's owners (or their products/services). S&P Global is not responsible for either the content or output of external websites. S&P Global keeps certain activities of its divisions separate from each other in order to preserve the independence and objectivity of their respective activities. As a result, certain divisions of S&P Global may have information that is not available to other S&P Global divisions. S&P Global has established policies and procedures to maintain the confidentiality of certain nonpublic information received in connection with each analytical process. S&P Global may receive compensation for its ratings and certain analyses, normally from issuers or underwriters of securities or from obligors. S&P Global reserves the right to disseminate its opinions and analyses. S&P Global Ratings’ public ratings and analyses are made available on its sites, www.spglobal.com/ratings (free of charge) and www.capitaliq.com (subscription), and may be distributed through other means, including via S&P Global publications and third party redistributors.