Volvo Eicher eyes 15 percent share of heavy commercial vehicles market

Kolkata, May 10 (IANS) Volvo Eicher Commercial Vehicles (VECV), a joint venture between Swedish auto major Volvo and India's Eicher Motors, is eyeing 15 percent share in the heavy commercial vehicle market in the country by the next four years, a top executive said Thursday.

"We continue to remain focused in the heavy commercial vehicle (HCVs)... we have a market share of a little over three percent. So, there is a huge potential to grow," VECV chief executive officer Vinod Aggarwal told reporters here.

Currently, the market size for HCVs is about 240,000 units.

"Our aspiration is to raise our market share to 15 percent in the HCV segment over the next three to four years," Aggarwal said.

The company is planning big to increase its market share as it will carry out a Rs.10 billion investment over the next two years.

That will include raising capacity of commercial vehicle, setting up a paint shop and also an engine manufacturing unit at Pithampur (Madhya Pradesh). The new engine plant would have a capacity to produce 50,000 engines by 2013 and 100,000 units by 2015.

Aggarwal informed that the VECV would supply engines to its overseas partner Volvo once the plant starts operation.

Stating that the joint venture company was also looking at increasing its presence in overseas markets, he said: "We are looking at markets like South Africa and south east Asia, where demand of commercial vehicles are on the rise."

"We hope to leverage on Volvo's overseas network and expand our presence in these markets within the next four to five years," he added.