The commercial vehicles division of Daimler AG will bundle the activities of the subsidiaries Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation (MFTBC) headquartered in Kawasaki, Japan, and Daimler India Commercial Vehicles Pvt. Ltd. (DICV) headquartered in Chennai, India, under the umbrella of “Daimler Trucks Asia.”

For Daimler Truck, this cooperation opens up the opportunity for significant growth in promising, emerging markets in Asia and Africa, according to the company. In this regard, MFTBC and DICV have planned a sales target of 290,000 units sold until the year 2020.
The Asia business will thus make a significant contribution to Daimler Trucks´ sales target of over 500,000 trucks in the year 2015 and 700,000 trucks in the year 2020.

The DICV plant in Oragadam, Chennai, is starting immediate production of five new FUSO truck types. These include the medium-duty models FA and FI with a gross vehicle weight of 9 to 16 tons and the heavy-duty models FJ, FO, and FZ with a gross vehicle weight of 25 to 49 tons. The FUSO truck portfolio produced in India will be sold exclusively in export markets in Asia and Africa, according to the company.

“Our new assortment of modern and, at the same time, economical FUSO trucks will fill the rising customer demand in Asia and Africa,” said Kai-Uwe Seidenfuss, MFTBC senior vice president of Sales & After Sales. “We will be supplying a total of 15 export markets through our established MFTBC sales network. The start will be made in Sri Lanka – with the first market launch as early as June, followed by Bangladesh, Zambia, Kenya, and Brunei later this year.”

For the year 2014, the company is planning to sell the new FUSO trucks in the export markets of Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Tanzania, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Mozambique, Mauritius and the Seychelles.