Vinod Aggarwal, CEO of VE Commercial Vehicles, is upbeat on the Eicher Pro 6000 series of heavy duty trucks launched earlier this week.

“This is an opportune time for us to grow our share in the medium and heavy duty truck space,” he told Auto Focus over phone from New Delhi. This product segment has been languishing for two successive fiscals and it is only over the last six months that growth is slowly coming back.

According to Aggarwal, fleet operators are able to read the recovery signals faster and have begun replacing their old vehicles with new ones. However, this is not being seen in the light CV space yet though a turnaround is expected in the coming months.

Slow going

Despite this, it will take at least a couple of years longer before medium and heavy trucks reach their peak sales levels of nearly 2.5 lakh units in 2011. Since then, volumes fell by 25 per cent in successive years and the crawl back to the top will take time. At present, volumes are in the range of 1.5 lakh units annually. The Pro 6000 series will be produced at VE Commercial Vehicles’ plant in Pithampur, Madhya Pradesh. This is also home to the 1000 and 3000 series. The more premium 8000 series is being assembled at Volvo’s Bengaluru facility and has a fair share of imported components.

Upping the ante

According to Aggarwal, the Pro 6000 Series offers best in-class fuel efficiency, superior productivity and a host of modern and intelligent features. Together with innovative support solutions, the series promises to deliver maximum profitability to the customer and fast track their business growth. Over the next 2-3 years, VE Commercial Vehicles (a joint venture of Volvo and Eicher) will look at exporting the Pro 6000 series trucks to markets in Southeast Asia and South Africa. The domestic market will, however, remain top priority especially with the long awaited upswing finally happening. “This is an important year for us and we are very bullish on the road ahead,” Aggarwal said.

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