On February 4th, the SKF Asia Pacific headquarters and R&D center located in Anting Town, Jiading District were put into operation. This project marks a solid step forward for SKF Group in deepening its Asia Pacific strategic layout and embracing the wave of transformation in the Chinese automotive industry. It also injects strong innovation momentum and industrial vitality into the core carrier area of the world-class automotive industry center in Jiading District.
The officially put into operation of the Asia Pacific headquarters and R&D center is an important landing point for SKF Group to unleash the potential of its automotive business and lay out its future, "said Miao Xiaopeng, the legal director of SKF Automotive China. The new building covers an area of about 12300 square meters, with a total construction area of over 30000 square meters, integrating the three functions of the Asia Pacific headquarters, sales company, and R&D center, and building a complete value chain covering R&D, sales, manufacturing, and support services. Its business radiation covers more than 20 countries and regions including China, Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, and Australia.
SKF Automotive Bearings (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. was also established in June 2025, focusing on the manufacturing of wheel hub bearings and suspension bearing units for passenger cars. Thus, SKF has formed an integrated strategic layout of "headquarters management+R&D innovation+intelligent manufacturing" in Anting.
According to data, SKF was founded in 1907 and its business covers products and solutions related to rotating shaft peripherals such as bearings, seals, lubrication management, condition monitoring, and services. Its products serve more than 40 industries including automobiles, railways, aviation, new energy, heavy industry, machine tools, logistics, and healthcare. As early as 1912, SKF entered the Chinese market and has established 8 major production bases, located in Nankou, Beijing, Ningbo, Wuhu, Dalian, Jinan, Changshan, Xinchang, and Shanghai.
On May 18, 2023, SKF announced that the second phase of its Changshan tapered roller bearing and cylindrical roller bearing production base was officially put into operation. It is understood that over 70% of the business at Changshan factory is related to automobiles. The commissioning of the second phase factory has once again increased the production capacity of passenger cars, commercial vehicles, especially in the field of new energy vehicles.
Changshan Base was originally established by its subsidiary brand Pierre in 1999, mainly producing agricultural machinery bearings in the early stage. After acquiring Pierre in 2008, SKF gradually expanded its business to industrial, commercial vehicles, passenger cars, engineering machinery and other fields. With the acceleration of business, SKF invested in the construction of a production base in Changshan in 2017. The first phase of the project was completed and put into operation in 2019, and the construction of the second phase was officially launched in 2022. It is reported that the first phase of Changshan Base has an annual production capacity of about 36 million sets of bearings, and the second phase has an annual production capacity of about 40 million sets of bearings. In addition to meeting the demand of the Chinese market, it also radiates to the North American and European markets.
In addition to continuously increasing production capacity, SKF's pace in localized research and development is also gradually accelerating. According to the data, from 2010 to 2020, SKF successively established a global technology center and a global testing center in China, formed a new energy vehicle capability center team, established a global railway capability center, and moved the global deep groove ball bearing product development team from France to China to quickly respond to local customers and market demands.
