Image copyright Press Eye Image caption Sensata manufactures a range of tyre pressure monitoring systems

Sensata Technologies is to close its factory in Carrickfergus, County Antrim with the loss of 270 jobs.

The firm makes tyre pressure sensors and blamed the closure on the downturn in the European car market.

The factory will wind down on a phased basis and fully close by early 2021.

The firm has a larger factory in Antrim that will remain open, although the company said "a small number of operational support roles" based there will also go.

Yann Etienvre, senior vice president of global operations at Sensata Technologies, said the company was facing "a perfect storm of European market conditions".

He said this led to a "significant drop in demand" for products made at the Carrickfergus site.

"There has been a well-documented fall in the global automotive industry and this has been further heightened by consolidation in our market, with existing customers being absorbed into large entities whose manufacturing processes use alternative products to our own," he added.

Sensata's operations in Northern Ireland involved a significant presence in both manufacturing and research and development since its 2014 acquisition of Schrader Electronics, which was founded in 1988.