Español
English
Twitter
LinkedIn
YouTube
  • NEO code®
  • SOLUTIONS
    • Improve assortment
    • Improve search engine
    • Improve product data
    • Consultancy
  • PRICES
  • ABOUT US
    • About Us
    • Team
    • Blog
    • Partners
    • Contact
BLOG-PFcode How many different products

The million dollar question: How many different products exist in the automotive aftermarket?

30 de January de 2018adminfactorydataPFcode

The automotive aftermarket focuses on the manufacture, reconstruction, distribution and sale of all parts of the vehicle after the sale of the vehicle by the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to the consumer.

In 2016, the global turnover of this market reached 643,000 million € and it is estimated that it will reach 848,000 million € in 2022.

The great challenge presented by the automotive aftermarket is managing the millions of existing references on thousands of products available in hundreds of manufacturers.

The million dollar question is: How many different products exist in the automotive aftermarket?

The first approach for calculating the number of existing products would be based on all manufactured vehicles and analysing the different components that are assembled.

The main problem posed by this approach is that no one has a list of all the different vehicles that exist in the world. Think about it, we are not only talking about cars, vans and trucks, no! we are talking about tractors, trucks, industrial, boats, snowmobile, quads, motorcycles, etc. etc.

Pfcode - Applications

Another possible approach to know the number of existing products would be based on all the products manufactured by the component manufacturers. We could think that if we know everything that has been manufactured we will know the total number of products that exist, right?

Well, here we are faced with a very important question: are all the products manufactured by the different component manufacturers, which all have their own OE reference number, really different? Because one thing is to generate different reference numbers and another thing is that they are really different products, right?

Pfcode - Manufacturers

How can we know if two OE products with their corresponding reference numbers are the same or not? Here we are already incorporating what is known as the grouping or service criteria.

I found the case of going to the official Volvo workshop for my private car XC90 from 2005 and having a conversation with the manager when he considered that two starter motors were different because they had different OEM Volvo reference numbers when the only difference they had was the color of some external plastics!

With this criterion from the head of the workshop, there really would be practically as many different products as OE reference numbers that exist in the market!

At the other extreme we would meet the expert mechanic who with a single product and the estimable help of a hammer and a welder, solves the problem for more than 1000 different applications!

It is clear that we must find an intermediate point of grouping or service criteria and that is why the codifications known as IAM (independent aftermarket manufacturer) appear. They are reference numbers created specifically for the aftermarket and that try to serve the needs of the market.

Normally each of these IAM reference numbers groups more than one OE and OEM reference number by means of which we are simplifying the number of different products needed to service the market and it gives us a clue as to how we can actually calculate the total number of different products that exist.

Pfcode - Clusterization

The idea would be: if we analyze an IAM codification, which by definition intends to service the market with the minimum of different reference numbers, we can know how many different products exist in the aftermarket, right?

But what is the issue with the use of IAM codification to resolve our question? Well basically two:

  • There is no IAM codification that groups all existing products of any kind.

  • The grouping criteria of the different IAM codifications are not same, so that the simultaneous use of different codifications to try to solve the first problem causes duplications and different groupings.

Therefore, if we take into account these two problems, we are back at another dead end! What is the final solution to this crossroads?

The solution we propose is to make a clustering (grouping) of all existing OEM or OE reference numbers in the market, taking into account the majority aftermarket criteria (using different codifications for each type of product) to be able to finish with the final number!

Of the total of 250,000 OE and OEM reference numbers that currently exist only for alternators and starter motors, if we group them according to the majority aftermarket criteria, they currently generate a total of 40,000 groupings!

PFcode funnel

Therefore, we have been able to accurately respond to the number of different products that exist (in our case it also includes those that have existed) in the automotive market.

The following million dollar questions would be: How many of these products are currently in demand? In what areas or countries? What demand levels or demand trend do they have? We will address these issues in subsequent blog posts!

Note: we are working on the calculation of the number of existing groupings for other products.

By  Joan Cabós
CEO & fundador

Tags: codifications, pfcode

Related Articles

Why your vision of the market for the Industrial, Agricultural and Marine segments is INCOMPLETE, IMPRECISE and COMPLEX?

23 de November de 2020adminfactorydata

Codifications, the madness on the automotive aftermarket

9 de October de 2017adminfactorydata
  • English
    • Español

Recent Posts

  • Internal, external and hybrid search engines
  • Real-time strategies to minimize lost sales
  • Your potential sales
  • GAPs discovery
  • Products of the year 2024

Recent Comments

    Archives

    • June 2025
    • May 2025
    • April 2025
    • March 2025
    • February 2025
    • January 2025
    • December 2024
    • October 2024
    • September 2024
    • August 2024
    • July 2024
    • June 2024
    • May 2024
    • April 2024
    • March 2024
    • February 2024
    • January 2024
    • November 2023
    • October 2023
    • September 2023
    • June 2023
    • May 2023
    • April 2023
    • March 2023
    • February 2023
    • January 2023
    • November 2022
    • October 2022
    • September 2022
    • August 2022
    • June 2022
    • May 2022
    • March 2022
    • February 2022
    • December 2021
    • November 2021
    • October 2021
    • September 2021
    • July 2021
    • June 2021
    • May 2021
    • April 2021
    • March 2021
    • February 2021
    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • July 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • February 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • July 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • January 2018
    • December 2017
    • November 2017
    • October 2017
    • September 2017

    Categories

    • Factory Data
    • NEO
    • PFcode
    • Web Services

    SOLUTIONS

    • Improve assortment
    • Improve search engine
    • Improve product data

    PRICES

    ABOUT US

    • About us
    • Team
    • Blog
    • Contact
    • Partners

    Subscribe to our Newsletter!

    @2025 Factory Data. All rights reserved    |    Notice of Privacy  |  Terms of use