The Seating Systems Market

A look at the major players in the industry and the effect that increasing vertical integration is having

The global seating market is clearly led at the tier-one level by two US companies; JCI and Lear. Faurecia, which is the second ranked supplier in Europe, is much smaller than the two larger players on a global basis.  Lear and JCI are also very strong in China owing to their having been early entrants into this market, following General Motors and Volkswagen there in the early days of Chinese market development. The individual pictures for the major regions show how Faurecia, JCI, Magna and Faurecia have over two-thirds of the North American and European markets; by contrast the data for Japan/Korea shows how these regions are supplied almost entirely by Japanese/Korean companies. The Japanese supplier Toyota Boshoku is ranked fourth globally owing to its presence in North America and a rapid rise in its business in China in recent years.  JCI is unique among the European/North American companies in having a significant presence in Japan; this is a result of its acquisition of the Ikeda seat company some years ago.