Leading commercial vehicle
player Daimler India Commercial Vehicles (DICV) is looking back at a successful
year 2016. Despite a mixed year in its domestic business, DICV was able to hold
to its own especially thanks to its export business which more than doubled
compared to 2015. For the current year, the company expects important growth
momentum from a new sub-9tonne truck for export and the new-generation of
BharatBenz heavy-duty trucks for India.
DICV will start production of
this third truck product family in 2017.
The new sub-9tonne vehicles will initially be designated only for
exports as FUSO brand variants, first customer vehicles will be rolled out in
the first half of the year.
In 2016, DICV sold 13,081
BharatBenz trucks (2015: 13,997) in India. This development was due to a
challenging market, which had turned negative in the second half of 2016 after
a good first half. At the same time, the 40,000th BharatBenz truck was handed
over to the customer, and the BharatBenz network has been significantly
expanded to include more than 130 Sales & Service touchpoints at the end of
the year.
DICV’s vehicle exports more
than doubled compared to the previous year, crossing the marks of 30 export
markets and 7,500 units since the start of exports in 2013. One highlight in
this area was the presentation of the first heavy-duty trucks built by DICV for
the Mercedes-Benz brand, which were showcased in November 2016 in advance of
their market launch in Indonesia. Exports of parts from DICV’s extensive Indian
supplier base to other Daimler entities around the globe (Japan, Europe, North
America and Brazil) also rose steadily and crossed the mark of 35 million
parts.
Another important milestone
reached in 2016 included production of the 50,000th vehicle at DICV’s
manufacturing plant at Oragadam near Chennai, which rolled off the line in
August 2016 - roughly four years after the start of production, which marks an
unprecedented ramp-up in the Indian CV industry.