DICV’s BharatBenz trucks cross 10,000 unit sales milestone

Around a month after laying the foundation stone for its bus plant, Daimler India Commercial Vehicles (DICV) has crossed the sales threshold of 10,000 BharatBenz trucks since their market launch in September 2012.

Selling around 2,200 vehicles in the first quarter of 2014, DICV has notched a growth of 67 percent as compared to the same period in 2013.

According to the company, BharatBenz’ sales growth is good given that the development of the Indian truck market above six tonnes decreased by around 20 percent in the first three months of the year. In the segment above nine tonnes, the company now has a market share of 5.3 percent in the Indian CV market.

“It is a tremendous success for us that we have already sold 10,000 BharatBenz trucks within just 18 months. We want to repeat this success with buses now,” said Marc Llistosella, MD and CEO of DICV. “Despite a challenging market environment, we rely on high-quality products and transparent pricing without any discount.”

Commenting on sales this year, Llistosella said the first half will continue to be tough but things will improve and market will consolidate by end-2014. The real growth will come in 2015 and 2016. He said the 9-tonne and above market has significantly dropped to its lowest during 2013 to 206,000 units from 334,000 units in 2011. The prevailing discounts in the industry are coming down from 40-50 percent to 20-25 percent, he said.  

DICV launched its heavy duty trucks in September 2012 and followed it by the launch of medium and heavy duty range in February 2013. In January 2014 it launched its tractor and construction and mining models covering the entire range of trucks in medium and heavy duty segment. 

Listosella said BharatBenz trucks have been well received in the market and around 5,000 customers have bought the trucks with over 1,000 being repeat buyers. He added that at present DICV has only 200 trucks at dealerships and 1,200 trucks as stock at its plants. He claimed that the overall Indian CV industry has over 48,000 unsold trucks stuck at dealerships.

According to DICV, it has a substantial market share in the south with the highest in Kerala at 26 percent, followed by Karnataka with 10 percent, Tamil Nadu 9 percent and Andhra Pradesh with 7 percent; the focus is now on growth in West and North India. “Our dealerships in the Western part of the country are a year old and we will start getting numbers from this region too,” said VRV Sriprasad, VP, marketing and aftersales, DICV. The CV maker has 71 dealerships across the country and aims to expand that number to 81 by end-2014 and 100 by end-2015.

Since May 2013, DICV has added FUSO trucks to its production portfolio at its plant in Chennai which are shipped to Asian and African growth markets with Tanzania being the latest market.