Mercedes 2015 Annual Report Download - page 161

168 C | THE DIVISIONS | DAIMLER TRUCKS
Last year, Chennaiproduced FUSO trucks enabled us to enter
more than a dozen selected export markets, such as South Africa.
Further market entries are planned for 2016.
Presence in the world’s largest truck market China
through our joint venture BFDA
Daimler AG owns 50% of Beijing Foton Daimler Automotive Co.,
Ltd. (BFDA), a joint venture between Daimler and Beiqi Foton
Motor Co, Ltd. BFDA has been producing medium-duty and
heavy-duty Auman brand trucks since mid-2012. In 2015, sales
of medium- and heavy-duty trucks decreased by around 30%
in China, the world’s biggest truck market by volume, due to the
country’s weakening economy. BFDA with its Auman brand
was unable to avoid this development; its unit sales in 2015 thus
decreased for market-related reasons to 69,200 vehicles
(2014: 99,200). In order to profit from the Chinese volume market
in the medium term, we systematically pushed forward with
our cooperation with Foton/BFDA in 2015. Following the suc-
cessful establishment of the OM 457 engine factory in our
joint venture, production of the heavy-duty Euro IV/V engine
starts in 2016. More than 300,000 Auman vehicles have been
sold since the joint venture was launched.
The Asian sales markets developed in widely diverse ways last
year. In Japan, we increased our unit sales by 4% to 45,600
vehicles. We expanded our market share, which now amounts to
20.8% of Japan’s overall truck market (2014: 20.1%). In India,
we increased deliveries by 36%, selling a total of 14,000 trucks.
Our new BharatBenz vehicles allowed us to increase our
market share of the upper medium- and heavy-duty segments
to 7.3% (2014: 6.2%). The BharatBenz product range was ex-
panded further last year by the launch of the all-new BharatBenz
3143 heavy-duty truck, which is designed for use in mining
and on construction sites and is by far the most powerful locally
built truck for the Indian market with 430 horsepower. With a
gross vehicle weight of 48 tons and four-axle configuration, the
truck is perfectly tailored to the requirements of customers
in India, with its plentiful reserves of raw materials. Thanks to
the intelligent platform strategy, Daimler Trucks’ engineers
developed the model in less than three years. Our sales in the
strongly contracting Indonesian market fell to 32,100 units
(2014: 58,300). However, our share of the total Indonesian truck
market increased to 48.0% (2014: 47.4%). In 2015, we continued
to work on our strategy of increasing Daimler Trucks’ global market
presence. The Asian subsidiaries Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and
Bus Corp. (MFTBC), which is based in Kawasaki, and Daimler
India Commercial Vehicles (DICV), which is headquartered in
Chennai, are making an important contribution to this strategy.
BharatBenz 3143: by far the most powerful local truck for the Indian market with 430 horsepower.