The company is also planning to enter into the bus market in an year's time, according to senior management of the company.
“Wehave selected the dealership in Africa and they are setting upworkshops, they are now given pilot vehicles for fuel trials and sendtrucks. Once the testing completes, things will pick up momentum.After April, we will start full fledged exports to Africa,” said A Ramasubramanian, president, AMW Motors Ltd.
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Atpresent, the company is exporting to neighboring countries such asNepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan and have started to export to Sri Lankaand Maldives. But currently it is seriously looking at African andIndonesian market. Far East and Africa will be the two focus markets for AMW Motors, he said.
“Our ultimate target is that 10-15 of our portfolio should be exports. Ina downturn it should increase. And it will take time since the marketitself would be growing when you fix a target on a particular percentage. I believe we would reach at it in the next two to three years, even if the market grows,” he added.
By April, the company will have exports to two to three more countries, from the presentfour.
The company would also be entering into the bus industry in an year'stime. It is currently designing the product and the existing manufacturing capacity has enough flexibility to manufacture bus.
The company would be focusing on the State Transport Undertaking (STU) market and would look at robustness, fuel efficiency and safety asdifferentiator to win the market, he said. The bus market size iscurrently about 45,000 buses per year.
AMW Motors has a capacity to make 4,000 trucks a month and currently itis manufacturing around 500. For the next two to three years no needto worry about capacity, he added.
Last two years has been a tough period for the industry, especially theheavy vehicle segment. However, the company used the period to expandits presence to cover a large chunk of the sector.
While it earlier used to address around 25% of the market, with its tipperproducts, it has added a complete range of haulage trucks and nowaddresses 95% of the market.
Itis also working on a 16 tonne haulage truck, where it is not strongat present and it would be ready in another three month's time, said Ramasubramanian. During the tough time, the company has added seven platforms and 16-17 variants, reaching a total of 15 platforms. It has also expanded the dealership network from 58 to 123 and service locations to 1,500 locations. He refused to reveal the currentturnover of the company.
Thecompany would also be looking at export branding and brand activities around AMW Motors, while it was earlier known as Asia Motor Works,he said. He added that the company expects the calender year 2014 would also be unfavourable to the industry, while 2015 would see aturnaround of the industry. The consolidation, along with a costsaving to the tune of over 30% mainly from reduction in overheads, would give an edge for the company to grow better when the market turns around. It is also expecting to increase the costsaving by another 10% by the time
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