By Nobuhiro Kubo and Yoshiyuki Osada

TOKYO/OSAKA, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Japanese electronic component makers are looking beyond a fickle smartphone market that once lured them with rocketing growth, tying their fortunes more closely to the most resilient of Japan's big industries: automobiles.

Component makers such as Murata Manufacturing Co Ltd and TDK Corp are capitalising on rising demand for electronics like those that make cars safer with automatic braking or less polluting with engine controllers.

In contrast, Murata and others are having an up-and-down ride shipping components for Apple Inc's iPhones, while declining smartphone orders were a factor in January when TDK slashed its full-year operating profit forecast.

The auto industry offers a stable alternative, especially because of the enduring prominence of compatriot automakers such as global leader Toyota Motor Corp. The value of electronic components per car will grow 26 percent over the decade to 2022, according to Fuji Chimera Research Institute.

But the payoff may not be as quick and will favour those with a longer history in the business.

"TDK and Murata were early to start working in automobiles and are strong there," said Manabu Akizuki, executive director at Nomura Securities. "Moving into automobiles is not so difficult but it takes 10 years to bear fruit."

Murata is the world's largest maker of ceramic capacitors used to control power supplies in electronic gadgets. It gets 40 percent of its sales from smartphones, including the iPhone for which it has been a major supplier since 2010.

Orders were hit earlier this year when Apple curbed output of the iPhone 5. It now aims to rely less on smartphones and boost autos' share of sales to 20 percent from 15 percent.

"Once we have products in place to expand our sales of power-supply parts, we expect to be able to generate growth that can match (that of our components for) smartphones," President Tsuneo Murata said in an interview last month.

Global smartphone demand is growing 30-40 percent a year, but this is likely to slow to 10-20 percent after about two years, he said.

Others in the industry also bemoan smartphone volatility.

"In December, (orders for the iPhone) were cut in half," said one senior executive who declined to be named. "Then they fell by half again. At that time, I thought: 'We'd be better off not doing this. The inventories just pile up.' It took four or five months to work them off. A smaller company would've gone under."

Murata has acquired several companies to bolster its position in autos, including Finnish microelectro-mechanical sensor maker VTI Technologies, bought in 2012 for 20 billion yen ($200 million). The sensors, which detect a car's movements, are used in stability control systems to prevent skidding that can cause accidents.