“The start of the year was influenced by the deliveries of pre-sold Euro 5 trucks, but was a good start, indeed,” said Sigurd Wandel, managing director of Volvo Group Trucks Romania.
In all, he expects the market performance not to be too different from 2013. Romania is not a market of large fleet sales yet, with a few exceptions. The need for replacement remains and the balance between renewal and expansion is the same as last year, Wandel added.
The company has a lot of deliveries ahead of it and expects growth of the market share by yearend, he said.
The shift from Euro 5 to Euro 6 made many customers trade in trucks that were almost new, considering Western European countries have already implemented lower taxes for the less polluting trucks of the two, Volvo Group Trucks Romania’s managing director said.
The rise in truck sales led to a significant increase in revenue for MHS Truck&Bus, the importer of MAN utility vehicles and of Neoplan buses in Romania. The company is part of the Automobile Bavaria Group of businessman Michael Schmidt.
“We hope the market will follow the same positive trend in the second half as in the first and for it to show in truck sales,” said Jorge Leuschner, chief executive officer of MHS Truck&Bus.
MHS Truck&Bus is in talks with a number of companies over fleet acquisitions, which it wants to see completed by the end of the year. This year’s sales were made to customers looking to renew and expand their fleets equally, Jorge Leuschner said.
The company expects EUR100 million revenue this year and an increase to EUR120 million next year. The truck importer posted EUR64 million revenue in 2013, down 11% on 2012.
One of the biggest fleets delivered this year was the 60 MAN truck order from carrier Dumagas this summer, which got the vehicles via a EUR4.5 million operating lease contract.
MHS Truck&Bus delivered 567 MAN trucks in the first seven months of this year, according to APIA, an increase of 138% on the year-ago period.
MAN trucks reached about 18% market share in 2013, which increased to 18.5% in January-July 2014. Volvo delivered 489 trucks in the first seven months, according to APIA, 72% more than in the year-ago period.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)