Toray Industries plans to build airbag textile factories in India and North America by fiscal 2016.
A plant in India will help the company meet an anticipated rise in local demand as tougher safety standards are introduced while the company is addressing its weak presence in North America. Toray said it aims to become the global leader in airbag textiles by 2020, up from third at present.
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The company did not reveal the size of the investments only that they are projected at several billion yen. Toray supplies highly heat-resistant woven nylon fiber for use in airbags and currently has production sites in Japan, China, Thailand and the Czech Republic.
It also plans to increase its nylon production capacity, boosting output of nylon fibre for air bags at its Thai factory beginning in 2015. This will raise the combined production capacity for the Thai and Japanese plants by 30% to 32,000 tons a year.
Global demand for airbag textiles is expected to grow at a 7% annual pace through 2020 as OE fitment rises around the world.
