With China's high-end, heavy-duty truck market not expected to boom for at least 10 years, global truck makers are now seeking opportunities in China's special-purpose vehicle segment in hopes of grabbing a foothold in the world's fastest growing economy.
"Although our major business in China still targets imports of heavy-duty trucks for logistics, we also have had breakthroughs in fire-fighting vehicles in the last two years," said Mats Harborn, managing director of Scannia China, the local branch of Swedish commercial vehicle producer under Volkswagen AG.
The company has also began providing construction and engineering trucks to the local market this year, said Harborn.
The world's second-largest truck maker Volvo Group, which exited a failed joint venture project with China National Heavy Duty Truck Group Co last year, also said that they were now focusing on China's booming construction machinery market through its acquired local company Shandong Lin'gong Construction Machinery, and a manufacturing tie-up with China's Dongfeng Motor Group which it took over from Nissan Motor.
"The demand for construction machinery is quite strong here in China as infrastructure construction is big and has huge potential, thanks to China's booming economy," said Leif Johansson, chief executive officer of Volvo Group.
China sold 630,000 heavy-duty trucks in 2009, up 17 percent over the previous year. And in the first four months, sales grew 132 percent to 383,000 units over last year, which made investment bank China International Capital Corp lift its full-year sales growth prediction from 10 to 15 percent previously, to 31 percent, with 838,000 units to be sold.
Johansson of Volvo also expects 25 to 30 percent market growth in China's heavy-duty truck segment. That compared with 10 percent growth in Europe and 15 percent recovery in the North America.
However, foreign truck makers still only control a small share of the world's biggest heavy-duty truck market, with more than 98 percent of the segment dominated by domestic manufacturers of medium- and low-end trucks, priced below 500,000 yuan ($73,210).
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