Denso to Push Its Technology Beyond Toyota

Denso Corp., which is 22% owned by Toyota Motor Corp., is preparing to launch a global marketing effort in 2016 to promote its safety sensors to other mass-market carmakers, Automotive News reports.

Yoshifumi Kato, who heads the company's research operations, says the company aims to hike sales of such products twentyfold to 200 billion yen ($2 billion) by 2020.

Denso already has introduced a few mass-market products, such as camera-based lane-keeping assist and an adaptive cruise control system that can automatically bring the vehicle to a full stop and then resume the preset driving speed. Its non-Toyota customers include Hyundai, Kia and Mazda.

Denso is the world's second-largest auto supplier after Robert Bosch GmbH. But AN says the company currently controls no more than 10% of the sensor market, which includes camera, radar and laser devices.

Kato predicts Denso can double its share to 20% by tapping a surge in demand for vehicular sensors driven by new safety performance standards in Europe and elsewhere. He predicts those regulations will expand the sensor market by a factor of five to 1 trillion yen ($9.7 billion) by 2020.