The end of honeymoon between Hero and Daimler made the latter to flirt with Bajaj or TVS to run the show. Daimler’s motive is to have a big shot in the industry like Magna Auto. The making of Mercedes-Benz strikes the string as Daimler intends to overtake the rivals like Volvo, MAN and Navistar. But none of these companies – Bajaj, TVS and Magna Auto- exerted any positive response to the issue.
Daimler has not let the heart down and will strive to drag the potential in the Indian market, especially with its Trucks. The tie-up between the Munjals of Hero group and Daimler did not pay off well, and they departed within a year of the JV. The reason cited is the dismal show of the commercial vehicles. Under the JV, Daimler had got 40% of Hero’s share for Rs106crore and has further invested Rs4600 crore to do it alone in the show, that Indian penetration might yield some other potential markets in the future.
This is one of the major tie-ups in the commercial vehicles sector in the Indian market- MAN, a Munich-based company had a tie-up with Force Motors, a Pune based company on 50:50; Navistar (US) and M&M; Nissan Motors and Ashok Leyland for light commercial vehicles; Sweden’s Volvo and Eicher Motors for commercial vehicles. Daimler, hereinafter, will involve in making Commercial Vehicles of light category, medium trucks by next year and heavy commercial vehicles by 2012 followed by export market later. For this, a production unit having a capacity of 70000 trucks is on near Chennai with Marc Llistosella as the CEO of the plant.
Daimler has five truck brands to its credit- Mercedes-Benz, Freightliner, Sterling, Western Star and Mitsubishi Fuso-Daimler. The temporary fall in the Commercial vehicles has revamped and the increase in the sale is by 5% to 2.63 lakh units. LCV sale is also increasing by 22% to 1.5 lakh units while the sale of heavy commercial vehicles is on the decrease by 11% to 1.12 lakh units.