A few global players in glass are eyeing opportunities in the Indian auto markets.

Asahi India Glass, the largest manufacturer of automotive glasses in India with about an 85% market share in passenger cars, recently announced setting up an $133 mln integrated glass making facility in Roorkee in the state of Uttaranchal.

Asahi’s main competitor Saint Gobain, which has been in India for over a decade now, plans to set up its second unit in Tamil Nadu by end of 2006 with an initial investment of $ 111 mln, India’s growing automobile markets being one of their main attractions.

While Saint Gobain’s Indian facility is capable of producing 650 tonnes of float glass every day, Asahi has two automotive glass plants — the Rewari plant has a capacity of 1.20 mln car sets, while the Chennai plant has an initial capacity of 5,00,000 laminated windshields. Its existing float glass plant, which is the third largest in the country at Taloja, Mumbai, has a capacity of 500 MT/day — the Roorkee plant is expected to add some 700 MT/day to that capacity.

Glazing on float glass is an important part in vehicle design, providing a combination of aesthetic, functional and structural properties. Globally Pilkington of US, Asahi of Japan and Saint-Gobain in France together supply around 74% of the total glazings used by the light vehicle production industry. Some global auto-parts makers have their own glass units like Visteon Glass of Visteon.

But, companies are now banking on projections of high growth rates for automotive glasses in the Asian markets. At a modest 10% growth in Indian auto demand, India’s expected to have some 3 mln cars in the next 15 years. Not surprisingly, estimates of auto-glass demand are also high.