According to the data issued by China Association of Auto Manufacturers, the heavy truck (including nonfinished vehicles and semi trailers) sales reached 1,017,400 sets, up 59.93% from 2009. And the increase rate was 42.22% higher than that of 2009.
In 1997, we were still looking for the way out for China’s heavy truck industry. However, in 2010, China’s output of heavy truck in 2010 has already reached 1 million, which was unimaginable in the past.” said Fu Yuwu, Executive Deputy Director of Society of Automotive Engineers of China.“No other country in the world had its heavy truck sales exceed 1 million in the history.” Standing at the starting line of 1 million output, how should China’s heavy truck industry step to a new high?
Quality and service upgrading is the key
During interviews, the failurefree mileage has been mentioned many times. According to the insiders of the industry, at present, the failure-free mileage for the heavy truck produced in the Europe and the US is usually 1.5 million km while for those produced in China is about 0.6 million km. T ough the failure-free mileage is related to the using condition, driving habit as well as the cleanness of oil etc, the quality of China’s heavy truck is still lagging behind those produced in the Europe and the US.
Ma Chunji, Chairman of China Heavy Duty Truck Corp. (CHDT) told the reporter that CHDT is to establish a quality and technology center, in full charge of the quality improving of the company’s products. Yuan Hongming, General Manager of SHACMAN MOTORS told the reporter that SHACMAN MOTORS has been carrying forward with the “quality examination project”, committed to implementing quality management measures and safeguarding and improving the quality of its products.
Improving service quality is also the important measure to upgrade the industry. Yuan Hongming told the reporter that SHACMAN MOTORS is trying to transform into a service-oriented heavy truck company. In 2010, SHACMAN MOTORS, while stabilizing the traditional Middle East market, African market, and Southeast Asian market, has sent business representatives to emerging market of 7 countries in Middle and South America, Southeast Asia and Middle Asia, establishing the local marketing and service network. In these market, SHACMAN MOTORS’ product sales has seen obvious increase. In particular, the sales in Indonesia and Libya are increased by 386% and 67%. It also established the fi rst overseas subsidiary SHACMAN FZE in United Arab Emirates, which made a new platform for SHACMAN MOTORS to expand its overseas business. Up to the end of 2010, SHACMAN MOTORS had established a leading international marketing and service network, by setting up 27 overseas representative offi ces, 1 overseas subsidiary and 8 overseas 4S shops and 2 large maintenance center and 180 overseas service stations.
“To develop a strong industry, it is never enough for the companies to just rely on selling products, but also to build up their own brands, especially in the auto industry.” said Fu Yuwu. He said that it was more important to stress the improvement of after-sale service and brand building after the output of the heavy truck exceeded a million.
Not only going global, but going well
T e signifi cant symbol that marks the auto industry develops from only large scale to a strong industry is the globalization of the industry. However, it is not smooth for the heavy truck industry to go global. An undoubted reality is that though the technology of the trucks has been improved a lot, but the electronic degree is not high, and the core technology such as the emission of engine is still lagging behind. Fu Chengwu said, “according to the survey of the Society of Automotive Engineers of China, the core technology of Chinese companies still has a large gap with that of foreign companies. It would be diffi cult for our heavy truck industry to climb to a new step without mastering the core technology.”
How to cope with this bottleneck? Wang Jianye, Director of Application Project of SHACMAN MOTORS said that the fi rst thing should be increasing the investment in R&D, especially in the independent R&D of core technology. Besides, insiders of this industry also told the reporter that another important thing that the Chinese auto companies should carry out is to nurture international business talent. T e establishment of an international marketing system, plus after-sale service system, is a long process, which deserve hard work and a long time.
Yuan Hongming told the reporter that SHACMAN MOTORS’ success in Algeria proved that diff erentiation strategy was an effi cient way to seize more shares of overseas market. SHACMAN MOTORS had launched different customized products based on local conditions and using habits. And it is proved to be very eff ective. Take Algeria as an example, since 2007 when it entered the market, SHACMAN MOTORS has already taken up 80% shares of the market.
Apart from improving themselves, another likely barrier Chinese heavy truck producers have to break is the trade barrier, such as the high tar- iff and GHOST certifi cation in Russia and GCC certifi cation in Middle East etc. The companies have to get those certifications in order to cross all the trade barriers.