Daimler India Commercial Vehicle eyes break even in 2018

MUMBAI: Five years after starting operations in the country, the Indian subsidiary of the world’s largest medium and heavy truck maker Daimler says it aims to break even operations in India by next year.

It assumes significance as Daimler India Commercial Vehicle had approached the Indian bankruptcy court in the past after its networth had eroded.

Reviewing the annual performance in India on Chennai on Tuesday, Marc Llistosella, head of Daimler Truck Asia said: “Daimler Trucks Asia has never been as profitable as last year. DICV has never done better financially as in the last year.”

“Not positive yet, but clearly on the way there. We’re planning to operationally break even at least in one quarter this year, and next year our clear aim is to be profitable,” said Llistosella.

Daimler India Commercial Vehicle or DICV has managed to hold on to its volumes in 2016 led by doubling of exports even as volumes started to decelerate in the domestic market in the second half of 2016.

“DICV has been in the market for just four and a half years. We’re a start-up. No other market entrant has managed to sell more than 40,000 trucks in such a short time. Still, profitability is more important for us than market share or sales figures,” added Llistosella.

In 2016, DICV sold 13,081 BharatBenz trucks registering a degrowth of 7% over almost 14000 trucks it sold in 2015 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. This was compensated by 4500 units of exports, which was double of last year.

Led by third line of products for the overseas market and up-gradation with new generation of heavy duty trucks for domestic market, the company hopes to create volumes momentum in the challenging Indian market.

Reviewing the performance of the company in 2016, Erich Nesselhauf, MD & CEO at DICV says the company kept its focus on profitable growth in 2016, which was a mixed year for the Indian CV industry at large.
"Thanks to our successful exports, we have been able to more than compensate current challenges in the domestic market. With new products in the pipeline, we are geared up for further growth in 2017,” said Nesselhauf.

Nesselhauf says the market environment will continue be challenging in 2017 on its part, Daimler will advance its BharatBenz brand in heavy duty truck space, which will completely upgrade the heavy duty truck range

The company has cumulatively sold over 40,000 trucks in India so far and its network spread is now reached 130 oulets

DICV’s vehicle exports more than doubled to 4500 units, crossing the marks of 30 export markets and 7,500 units since the start of shipment in 2013. One of the highlight during the year was export of the Mercedes-Benz branded truck from DICV, which were showcased in November 2016 in advance of their market launch in Indonesia.

DICV will start production of its 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.