Collaboration with Chinese rivals is the only way companies in the automotive sector will survive in the long term, the head of Thailand’s biggest listed parts supplier has predicted, citing their lower costs and better technology.
Yeap Swee Chuan, founder and CEO of Aapico Hitech—a 30-year-old Bangkok-based automotive parts supplier and car dealership that racked up global revenue of THB 28.2 billion (USD 844.4 million) in 2025—said turmoil in the Southeast Asian country’s automotive sector in the last three years since Chinese manufacturers shook up a market that had been dominated by companies from Japan is being replicated across much of the world.
“The Japanese are at sixes and sevens,” he told Nikkei Asia in an exclusive interview. “In the long term, survival is going to require greater collaboration with the Chinese. It’s going to be hard to stop them.”
Yeap also stressed that the parlous state of Thailand’s automotive sector, which accounts for some 12% of gross domestic product but which Toyota’s Asia CEO Masahiko Maeda described this month as being “in a moment of crisis,” was also because of domestic factors. He highlighted a lack of political stability, limited government support for business and relatively slow economic growth.
Thailand registered 621,166 car sales in 2025, of which 121,962 were electric vehicles. This was up 8.6% from 572,675 in 2024, marking the first annual increase in three years, but the result remained less than half the peak figure of 1.43 million recorded in 2012. Similarly, vehicle production in the country dropped from 2.46 million in 2013 to 1.45 million last year. Yeap expects this figure to continue to fall, as domestic household debt strains and changing export patterns persist.
He predicted that the rapid reordering driven by Chinese EVs will lead to a “new type of globalization” where established sector giants will have to adjust and smaller companies will supply parts to manufacturers around the world.
This echoes a broader mood in the sector. In March, when Honda announced its first ever loss since going public, the Japanese automaker said the business environment was “changing dramatically day by day, and the outlook remains uncertain,” adding that it was suffering from “intensified competition due to the rapid emergence of newer EV manufacturers.”
Driven by their focus on building cheap EVs, Chinese automakers’ share of global automotive sales doubled over a decade to 25% in 2025, according to US research firm Mobility Global. This is only one percentage point below the share of Japanese automakers, which shrank four percentage points over the period to 26%.
Yeap predicted that the result of the changes is likely to be that the proportion of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles globally will fall to about one-third, with another one-third being pure electric and the final third being some form of hybrid. According to International Energy Agency data, EV sales have increased by 3.5 million for five consecutive years to 2025. The agency estimates that EVs now account for about 5% of the global car stock.
“Three years ago, when the Chinese cars came here [to Thailand], everybody said they were junk,” Yeap said. “But today, it’s not junk anymore. Their cars, their electronics, their systems and all that. Very advanced and the kids and the young people love it.”
“They will win the war for sure,” he said. “You know why? All the people in the world, whether it’s European or anybody, they think of ICE and ICE and ICE. They are all ICE brain, and the internal combustion engine. The Chinese started up from EV. Their brain is EV, EV, EV.”
He did not put a timeframe on the “victory” and said that 97% of Aapico’s manufacturing is still for non-Chinese companies. But this is down from almost 100% just three years ago. And the rate of EV adoption in many Asian markets is accelerating, he added. In Indonesia, until recently Southeast Asia’s largest car market, EV sales—the vast majority of which are Chinese-made—have gone from zero to 15% of the annual total in just five years, according to IEA data. In Thailand the same growth has been from 1% to 23%.
The major market that Yeap predicted would resist the Chinese onslaught in the short to medium term is the US, largely because it is more protected than others. Aapico last year formed a joint venture with Portugal’s Sodecia to build a plant in South Carolina, mostly to supply parts to Scout Motors, a Volkswagen subsidiary.
The 78-year-old Malaysian entrepreneur started Aapico in 1996 after his previous venture, a Ford dealership, collapsed under heavy debt. The timing was hardly auspicious, with the Asian financial crisis striking the following year. But Aapico weathered the storm and revenue grew from THB 1.04 billion (USD 31.1 million) in 2000 to 30.4 billion in 2023.
The group makes everything from chassis components to fuel tanks and transmission systems. Aapico also supplies components for Vietnam’s VinFast, one of the region’s fastest-growing EV manufacturers.
Aapico has three business units. Automotive parts manufacturing accounts for some 72% of operations, dealerships and service centers 28% and internet-of-things connectivity and mobility less than 1%.
Yeap first expanded into China in 2004, long before Chinese automakers emerged as global challengers. Aapico now has 52 subsidiaries and associate companies, with 32 based in Thailand and 20 abroad, while overseas operations accounted for 47.6% of group revenue in 2025. Listed on the Thai stock exchange in 2002, Aapico is Thailand’s largest listed automotive parts manufacturer, but in revenue terms it is only about 32% the size of Thai Summit, the country’s dominant privately owned supplier.
The jovial and gregarious businessman said he is better positioned than many others because of Aapico’s early expansion into China and years of collaboration with Chinese companies. One example is Malaysia, where Aapico in 2023 acquired a 60% stake in a joint venture with local manufacturer Proton, which is 49.9%-owned by Geely, to make parts for Proton vehicles.
The scale of the sector’s transformation, in Southeast Asia and globally, is so great that it makes the energy crisis triggered by the Iran war relatively inconsequential, Yeap said. “[The crisis] cannot be forever. It’s something that is like a peak, and will go back to normal. I think it’s just … some situational changes and some top leaders in the world … creating some issues. It will go back to normal.”
In the interview Yeap cited many examples, including Volkswagen and Porsche, of how legacy automakers are struggling to adjust in the face of the relentless Chinese progress. He described how a friend who has driven both a Porsche and the Chinese equivalent was blown away by the latter. “It is one-third of the price but the key point is the electronics are very advanced in China,” he said. “The car, its electronics, is even better than the Porsche.”
This is also being reflected in the Thai market, where Chinese automakers are recording significant sales in the high-end market. For example, the Zeekr 009, a luxury EV minivan made by Geely, was offered for about THB 3 million (USD 89,824.9) when launched in 2024, one-third less than the similar Toyota Alphard minivan, Nikkei reported.
Despite its many collaborations with Chinese companies, Aapico has not been immune to the inexorable march of cheap high-quality Chinese vehicles. Its net profit fell from THB 1.6 billion (USD 47.9 million) in 2023 to 747 million the following year. In 2025 net profit fell again, to THB 731 million (USD 21.9 million). This year began more positively: the group recorded net profit of THB 314 million (USD 9.4 million) in the January-March period.
Most of the pain has been felt in Thailand, where Aapico’s revenue fell 26.6% from a peak of THB 18.7 billion (USD 559.9 million) in 2023 to THB 13.7 billion (USD 410.2 million) last year. In contrast, its revenue from overseas operations grew slightly from THB 11.7 billion (USD 350.3 million) to THB 12.5 billion (USD 374.3 million) in the same period.
Domestic political instability “since the 1990s is the number one” reason for Thailand’s current economic woes, Yeap said. “The politics has been volatile, you know, Remember the red shirts and yellow shirts, parking on the streets. The streets were all clogged up.”
Minimal government support for business is another factor, he added. “In Thailand, to a certain extent, businesses drive themselves. The government helps a little bit, but not significantly, like Japan or Singapore.”
The CEO said it is a “difficult question” as to whether all the Chinese foreign investment is good for the Thai economy. “Nobody in the world says foreign investment is bad, because foreign investment brings money. Right? Foreign investment brings jobs. And foreign investors have to [find] supply for whatever they manufacture locally or they export. So it cannot be bad, but it may destroy some of the local companies.
“So how do you equate good or bad? The economy may grow, but the local industry, some local industry, will be impacted.”
Yeap said he has also been affected by Chinese manufacturers sourcing many of their parts from China, although he added that “fortunately the volume of Chinese cars is still small,” with perhaps each manufacturer making a maximum of 50,000 vehicles in Thailand.
“So what we are doing today, I tell you, I’m intensely looking for Chinese companies to be partners. So that when they come, they will work with us,” he said. “We are already here. Our plants are amortized, our land is amortized. So some of them will have to work with us.”
This article first appeared on Nikkei Asia. It has been republished here as part of 36Kr’s ongoing partnership with Nikkei.
Note: THB figures are converted to USD at rates of THB 33.40 = USD 1 based on estimates as of August 4, 2026, unless otherwise stated. USD conversions are presented for ease of reference and may not fully match prevailing exchange rates.