PUTNAM COUNTY – Ficosa, a top-tier automotive provider, hit an all-time record in 2016, with $193.54 million (€181.6 M) in new contracts for rear-view mirrors with main automobile manufacturers (OEMs) in the world. This represents a 30 percent increase in deals signed in 2015, a milestone company officials say in part is due to growth in North America – and Cookeville.
Fiscosa opened a state-of-the-art plant in the Highlands Business Park in 2016. In June, the company was awarded multiple rear-view mirror contracts worth $510 million in North America – three orders of which will be produced in Cookeville. Local production, officials say, will represent an economic value of $460 million.
Ficosa, as a result, says it will increase production to an all-time high of 27.3 million units by 2021. In short, five years from now, the company will produce 4.9 million more rear-view mirrors than today.
“This great milestone is the result of a profound technological transformation,” Mercedes Pujol, director of the rear-view systems business unit, said in a release. “We (are)…devoting resources to optimize our traditional product and develop new…products in order to consolidate our position in the global market.”
Officials say the growth was driven in two key markets: North America, namely Cookeville, and China. In addition to its latest-generation plant in the Highlands Business Park, the company also opened a new plant in Shenyang in northern China and has increased its market share in the Asian country.
These new facilities, which represent an investment of more than $50 million, are the group’s most advanced plants in the world, and boost overall efficiency, operating capacity and competitiveness.
