Daimler India Commercial Vehicles – the local subsidiary of Europe’s largest truck maker Daimler AG, registered a record performance in 2023, with strong double-digit growth.
During the last calendar year, Daimler India Commercial Vehicles (DICV) posted 39% growth in domestic sales and 13% growth in cumulative sales for the entire year. Effectively, the company posted 21% growth in revenue and 21% growth in parts business in 2023. The bus sales for the company doubled with 107% growth over 2022. The company which will be launching 14 new products in 2024 across three different segments, expects the light to heavy-duty market to remain flat in 2024, on account of global geopolitical challenges and the upcoming elections.
Reviewing the calendar year 2023 performance, Satyakam Arya, MD and CEO of Daimler India Commercial Vehicles said the calendar year business performance was the best-ever.
“This was the best ever year for us – we sold 23,400 trucks registering a growth of 35% with buses growing by more than 100%. We outgrew the market by 3.5 times in 2023. It was a great year for us, we will continue this momentum in 2024,” added Arya.
In January 2023, DICV transitioned its entire BharatBenz truck and bus portfolio to comply with OBD-II regulations, with a sharper focus on reducing the total cost of ownership, increasing the productivity of its trucks, effectively resulting in longer service intervals, claimed the company.
The best-ever sales and financial growth, since inception, was spearheaded by excellent demand for its tipper and tractor-trailer product lines which grew 53% and 79% respectively, compared to CY2022, stated the company.
To sustain the momentum, the company on Tuesday showcased an all-new rigid heavy-duty range with many firsts – this range is set for launch in April 2024. Daimler will also be introducing its own 12-speed AMT (Automated Manual Transmission) introduced in BharatBenz trucks. The company also introduced a new construction and mining truck range completely re-engineered with an aim to make it more productive.
Arya expects the market to remain flat in 2024 with total industry volumes of 3,50,000 in the 9 to 55 tonne range – he foresees the sales in the first half of 2024 to remain a bit soft, however, the second half will see a strong growth momentum post-election.
“In the best-case, the market may remain flat and the pessimistic scenario may be minus 5% for trucks, however, the bus market will grow by over 35-40%,” he added.
On its part, Arya said a slew of strategic initiatives that the company undertook in 2023 also helped in taking informed decisions on costs, tackling headwinds effectively and sharpening the brand’s focus on key areas of its business.
“We have started CY2024 with great confidence, and with an ever-stronger product portfolio, engineered and packaged to drive business growth to new heights in 2024. Our aim was to challenge ourselves and up the game on total cost of ownership, uptime and reliability, all of which our customers will benefit from with our new MY24 heavy-duty truck portfolio. These trucks reflect our highly evolved product development capabilities, which are being put to good use for the creation of new products to help answer future mobility requirements,” he added.
On the sustainability front, nearly 85% of DICV’s manufacturing operations are run on renewable energy and nearly 90% of its plant functions on upcycled water, reducing over 27,000 tonnes of carbon footprint, claimed the company.