Engineering company Bosch has announced it is responding to a trend toward software-based automotive engineering by realigning its automotive-supply business.

Within Robert Bosch GmbH, Bosch Mobility will in the future be managed as a business sector with responsibility for its own business and its own leadership team.

The company says this is because “more than ever, innovations in the automotive sphere are coming about through bits and bytes”.

At the Bosch annual press conference, Dr. Stefan Hartung, the chairman of the board of management of Robert Bosch GmbH announced he aim is to be able to serve existing and new customer needs even better and faster with customised technologies and solutions from a single source.

With 230,000 associates at more than 300 locations in 66 countries worldwide, Bosch Mobility will be the biggest of Bosch’s four business sectors.

“Software won’t only change how we use and experience cars in the future. It will also change the way cars are engineered. For some time now, Bosch has also seen itself as a mobility software company. Now, in response to customer requirements, our structure is changing to reflect this and to open up further growth,” said Dr. Markus Heyn, member of the Bosch board of management and the future chairman of the five-strong Bosch Mobility sector board.

Bosch’s aim for this new structure is that it will generate sales revenue of more than 80 billion euros worldwide by 2029.

It says one pillar of this growth will be the market for automotive software. Driven by the trend toward software-defined vehicles, this market is likely to reach a volume of significantly more than 200 billion euros by 2030. This is three times more than in 2020.

“Drivers across the globe want to seamlessly integrate their vehicles into their digital world. After all, we have gotten used to constant updates and new features on our smartphones. Now, we are applying this to cars as well,” Mr Heyn said.

(Picture – Bosch)