9 / 44
CAPITAL EQUIPMENT NEWS
AUGUST 2017
7
V
E Commercial Vehicles (VECV), a
decade-old joint venture between the
Volvo Group and Indian headquartered
Eicher Motors Ltd, used the recently-ended
TruckX 2017 to officially introduce its
Eicher range of trucks to the South African
commercial vehicle market. To set the ball
rolling, the joint venture has already set up
its South African base in the form of a 100%
wholly-owned subsidiary, VECV South Africa.
Despite a cutthroat trading environment
in the South African commercial vehicle
market with several existing players already
jostling for a share of the market, which is
already notably in rough waters, Surender
Singh Rajpurohit, vice president and country
head at VECV South Africa, believes that
there is still space for a new brand in the
local commercial vehicle market, especially
a good product which is competitively priced
and comes with no extra frills.
It is significant to note that VECV South
VE Commercial Vehicles
(VECV), a joint venture of
the Volvo Group and Eicher
Motors Ltd, has launched
its Eicher range of trucks in
South Africa.
VECV won the prestigious Tipper of the Year award in India in 2012.
Africa launches its local ventures at a time
when the truck market has just experienced
a 2,8% decline in sales during June to record
a total of 1 652 units during the month. The
result brought the total for the first half of
2017 to 8 888 units, a decrease of 2,8%
compared with the first half results of the
previous year, according to joint results
published by the National Association
of Automobile Manufacturers of South
Africa, Associated Motor Holdings and
Amalgamated Automobile Distributors.
In the first phase of its introduction, Eicher
has its eyes on the Heavy Commercial Vehicle
(HCV) segment with a three-model line-up of
its Pro Series range. The HCV segment is
regarded as the “bread and butter” of the
local truck market, but is not enjoying the
best of times at present on the back of a
2,3% decline to 2 628 unit sales in the first
half of 2017, compared with the same period
in 2016.
Three of the Pro series models for
South Africa are the Pro 6025T, a
10 m³ tipper; the Pro 6016, a 16 t
GVM freight carrier; and the Pro
3000, an 8,5 t heavy duty offering
for haulage.
Surender Singh Rajpurohit, vice president and
country head at VECV South Africa.