Daimler India Commercial Vehicles (DICV), the Indian arm of Germany’s Daimler AG, has begun 2021 with significant growth in sales of its BharatBenz trucks and gain in market share in the medium and heavy commercial vehicle segment (M&HCV-trucks) during the January-March quarter.

Industry growth

As the M&HCV segment, started to show signs of revival from the September 2020 quarter with the resumption of construction and infrastructure activities, most of the players have been reporting positive growth in truck sales. The M&HCV market doubled its domestic volumes (trucks) at 75,790 units (excluding BharatBenz) during the January-March 2021 quarter compared with 37,730 units in the year-ago quarter, when the industry was in a sluggish phase.

In line with M&HCV growth, DICV also reported a 85 per cent increase in its BharatBenz truck sales at 4,507 units in the domestic market during Q1 of 2021 compared to 2,439 units in Q1 of 2020, according to the details provided by Daimler AG in Germany on Friday.

The company has also increased its market share during the quarter to 7 per cent, up from 6.4 per cent in a year-ago quarter, in the above 9-tonne truck market.

Satyakam Arya, Managing Director & CEO, DICV, had said that the value offered by BharatBenz trucks was validated by increasing customer confidence in the brand, enabling the company to outpace the market even during the tough conditions of 2020.

Demand revival

Encouraged by the revival in demand and momentum in sales, DICV launched a new set of trucks and buses in January to fill the gaps in its portfolio with a realigned product strategy.

While the company’s order book is healthy and it is hoping to maintain the sales momentum due to improved road building works and revival of mining activity, the second wave of pandemic is expected to play a spoilsport for the M&HCV industry.

“We are expecting the April to June quarter to be down by a margin of about 20 per cent compared to the January-March 2021 quarter as Covid-19 lockdowns force delays in construction activity and industrial production. From the July-September quarter we estimate the demand to start picking up and to be 15-17 per cent higher than the April-June quarter of 2021,” says Paritosh Gupta, Research Analyst, Medium and Heavy Commercial Vehicle Forecasting, IHS Markit.