Daimler India Commercial Vehicles (DICV), the wholly-owned subsidiary of Daimler Truck AG announced that in CY2023 it has achieved record sales and revenue performance. The company’s CY2023 domestic truck and bus sales grew by 39% and revenue grew by 21% over 2022. DICV’s bus volumes doubled in CY2023, growing 107% over 2022. Its cumulative sales (including domestic and exports) from January to December 2023 grew by 13% and its parts business grew by more than 21% over CY2022.
In January 2023, DICV had transitioned its entire BharatBenz truck and bus portfolio to comply with OBD-II regulations, with a sharper focus on reducing total cost of ownership, increasing the productivity of its trucks and offering industry-leading service intervals in India.
Commenting on the business performance, Mr. Satyakam Arya – Managing Director and CEO, Daimler India Commercial Vehicles said, “Our best-ever sales and financial growth, since inception, was spearheaded by excellent demand for our tipper and tractor trailer product lines which grew 53% and 79% respectively compared to CY2022. A slew of strategic initiatives that we undertook in 2023 also helped us take informed decisions on costs, tackle headwinds effectively and sharpen our focus on key areas of our business. We have started CY2024 with great confidence, and with an ever-stronger product portfolio, engineered and packaged to drive business growth to new heights in 2024. Our aim was to challenge ourselves and up the game on total cost of ownership, uptime and reliability, all of which our customers will benefit from with our new MY24 heavy-duty truck portfolio. These trucks reflect our highly evolved product development capabilities, which are being put to good use for creation of new products to help answer future mobility requirements.”
The record business performance in 2023 was driven by multiple initiatives that DICV undertook holistically as an organization. Last year, the company met its annual target of establishing 350 sales and service locations across India, expanding BharatBenz presence across the country, in new markets. Manufacturing operations were streamlined and made cost effective by introducing many digitalization initiatives such as automated workforce planning and predictive maintenance using data, and many other initiatives that are in the phase of completion. On the sustainability front, nearly 85% of DICV’s manufacturing operations are run on renewable energy and nearly 90% of its plant functions on upcycled water, reducing over 27,000 tonnes of carbon footprint.
On the heels of its record performance in 2023, the truck and bus manufacturer renowned for setting new benchmarks in the Indian commercial vehicles industry is ready to launch all its MY24 BharatBenz heavy-duty trucks in the coming months. The first to be launched will be the all-new BharatBenz Rigid range, followed by trucks with the newly-introduced Automated Manual Transmission (AMT) and the all-new Construction and Mining truck heavy-duty range.
Commenting on the all-new MY24 BharatBenz range Mr. Sreeram Venkateswaran, President and Chief Business Officer (domestic sales and customer service) said, “Having set new benchmarks in the industry, gained a large customer base in the construction and mining space and with a progressive tractor trailer portfolio in the last decade, we felt that we should go back to the drawing board to revamp everything that our heavy-duty trucks had under their skin and offer customers something new in 2024. So, the MY24 BharatBenz range is more superior than ever with respect to total cost of ownership, technology, reliability, safety, comfort and serviceability. With our new trucks we are ready to intensify our presence in the construction and mining space with tippers that are far superior to their predecessors. We are soon launching an all-new Rigid heavy-duty range that will offer best-in-class fuel efficiency, power, torque, safety, reliability and service benefits. We are introducing the world’s best 12-speed Automated Manual Transmission in our portfolio will deliver an effortless driving experience and class-leading fuel efficiency like it has done in approximately 500,000 of our trucks around the world.”