UD Trucks Corporation, a Japanese arm of Swedish truck and bus maker Volvo Group, looks set to tap into the medium-duty truck segment globally with its new Croner model made at its Thai facility.
The Saitama-based firm yesterday debuted the Croner at its regional headquarters on Bang Na-Trat Road in Samut Prakan.
Jacques Michel, president of Volvo Group Trucks Asia & JVs Sales, said with Croner, the group has four models ranging from heavy to medium-duty trucks. The other models are Quon, Condor, and Quester.
The Thai-made Quester and Croner cater largely to emerging markets in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America while Quon and Condor are positioned to serve mature markets such as Japan, Oceania and Europe where emission standards are higher.
"The plant in Thailand handles assembly of the Quester and Croner model, with shipments of both as completely built-up and completely knocked-down units to Volvo's operations in 30 countries," said Mr Michel, who used to be president of Volvo Group (Thailand) during 2012-2016.
He said the Croner would also be introduced in other countries this year.
Last year the group sold 20,700 units of UD trucks worldwide, up by 10% from last year. Sales in Japan made up half of total sales.
UD Trucks was established in Japan in 1935, formerly known as Nissan Diesel before it became a part of Volvo in 2007.
The group's manufacturing facility run by Thai-Swedish Assembly Co in Samut Prakan has annual production capacity of 4,500 Volvo trucks and 20,000 UD trucks.
Kamlarp Sirikittiwatn, president of Volvo Group (Thailand), said the Croner is UD's first entry into the country's medium-duty truck market.
For the past eight years the group has sold the models Volvo FH, Volvo FM, Volvo FMX and UD Quester in Thailand's heavy-duty truck segment.
"I expect the Croner can be very competitive in the Thai market, which is controlled by Japanese brands," he said.
The heavy-duty truck market had sales of 18,000 units in 2016, with medium-duty segment sales of 6,900 units.
"Croner aims to serve the construction and logistics sectors, which are now growing in the country," said Mr Kamlarp.
He predicted UD Trucks sales would grow this year from 800 units last year, which was a 56% rise.
UD Truck's market share for heavy-duty trucks rose to 4.1% in 2016 from 2.2% in 2015. Volvo's sales fell sharply by 22% to 391 units last year, with market share down to 2.4% from 4% in 2015.
