Executive Summary
The automotive industry is the largest manufacturing sector in the United States. It is truly a global industry with
automakers from the United States, Europe, Japan and Korea producing cars and automotive parts for consumers
around the world. With so much activity taking place, this Top Markets Report provides U.S. auto parts suppliers
with an assessment of opportunities and challenges, and can be used as a resource to help suppliers successfully
export to various markets throughout the world. Separate models were developed to rank opportunities for
original equipment (OE) parts and for aftermarket parts export markets through 2021. Rankings are provided for a
total of 30 markets, with detailed country case studies written about nine different markets. In addition, the
report includes two snapshots regarding new automotive technologies and benefits from the Trans-Pacific
Partnership.
Rankings
The rankings for the OE and aftermarket models show a number of similarities, with both models having Canada,
Mexico and China as the top-ranked markets.
However, despite these similarities, distinctions do
emerge in both the order of the rankings and the
relative values that many countries received. While
Canada, Mexico and China are the top three in both
the OE and aftermarket rankings, they receive these
scores for varying reasons in each analysis. In regards
to OE, China had the highest average vehicle
production (17.8 million) between 2012 and 2014,
more than double the second largest vehicle producer
in this analysis (Japan produced 8.3 million vehicles on
average from 2012 to 2014). China is also projected to
produce over 27 million vehicles by 2020. In addition,
it is the third largest market for U.S. automotive parts,
with U.S. automotive part exports growing from less
than $1 billion in 2009 to almost $2.4 billion in 2015.
Given the large size of the market and the growth of
U.S. automotive parts exports to the market since
2009, China looks to be a strong prospect market for
American–made OE auto parts. In the aftermarket rankings, China is also a market with large potential, largely for
similar reasons.
Canada and Mexico, however, are the top two markets in the OE and aftermarket rankings for a different set of
reasons. While they produce fewer vehicles than China (Canada averaged 0.9 million and Mexico averaged 1.
million between 2012 and 2014), they have historically been the largest market for the export of U.S. automotive
parts, accounting for almost 75 percent of U.S. auto parts exports in 2014 and 2015. In addition, the automotive
industry is highly integrated among Canada, Mexico and the United States given the close proximity in terms of
distance and the sharing of a border. Based on these factors and the continued growth of vehicle manufacturing
and investments in Mexico, it is expected that these two neighboring markets of the United States will continue to
be strong markets for U.S. auto parts exporters in the future.
Looking further at the OE model, Japan, Germany and Korea round out the top six potential markets. These three
countries are the largest producers of vehicles following China, so it is understandable that there would be a
greater demand for OE parts in these countries. On average, Japan produced 8.3 million vehicles, Germany
produced 5.5 million vehicles, and Korea produced 4.2 million vehicles. In addition, Germany is the fourth largest
Figure 1: Automotive Parts Export Market Rankings
Original Equipment
Parts Aftermarket Parts^
Country Ranking Country Ranking
Canada 1 Canada 1
Mexico 2 Mexico 2
China 3 China 3
Japan 4 Hong Kong 4
Germany 5 Singapore 5
Korea 6 Chile 6
Belgium 7 Peru 7Hong Kong 8 Belgium 8Singapore 9 Netherlands 9
France 10 Germany 10