Growing strong

Scania Southern Africa’s managing director Steve Wager delivered some wonderful news at the Johannesburg International Motor Show (JIMS) 2013, as he spoke about the extra-heavy commercial vehicle market …

“About a year ago we predicted a five percent growth in the market, which for us is the extra-heavy truck market. However, we’re very pleased that this year, so far, the total market is up by some 10 percent,” Wager points out.

He adds that Scania has seen significant growth in market share – some 29 percent to be exact. “So we actually exceeded that growth in the market,” says Wager. “And we’re the only western European brand to have gained market share this year, so it is something that makes us very proud.”

However, that isn’t the only wonderful news that came from JIMS as Scania sold a huge number of trucks, as well as the first example of its new coach – the Scania Touring.

Gideon de Swardt, public relations officer for Scania South Africa, explains: “We planned to launch this bus at JIMS, as an important example for our model line-up, but the first 10 we imported were actually sold prior to the show. Obviously, with deals of that magnitude we could not delay the sales, but we managed to hire one of the buses from a customer for the duration of the show.”

He adds that this example enabled the company to sell a new coach straight from the stand. “I’ve been in the truck business for many years and this is the first time this has happened.”

De Swardt continues: “On that same day (the Thursday VIP preview day) a cross-border customer placed a double-digit order for some highly specialised truck-tractors to be used mainly in the mining industry.” Unfortunately he can’t quote figures, but the order was substantial.

However, that’s not all as a further eight vehicles, comprising various models, joined the list of sales. “One of the customers flew in a private aircraft from Louis Trichardt to Rand Airport, arrived at the show and purchased the Scania Streamline, our latest addition to the range, straight away. This is one of our flagship truck models and was launched in Europe only a few months ago,” De Swardt adds.

So things are going extremely well for Scania, with the first few days of JIMS delivering exceptional results.

Wager relates that Scania is expecting another five percent growth for the extra-heavy market in 2014. “Luckily we got it wrong last year and hopefully we’ll be mistaken again – and it will be even higher,” he says with a smile.