An able and technologically competent base of bus manufacturers, bus body builders and component suppliers make for a strong bus industry in the country. Busworld India 2018 held in Bengaluru from August 29 to 31 reaffirmed India’s position as one of most progressive bus markets in the world.
With over 115 exhibitors and more than 8,000 visitors, the exhibition saw all key stakeholders in the country’s bus & coach sector come together for a highly successful eighth edition of the fair in India.
Talking exclusively to MOTORINDIA, Mr. Didier Ramoudt, President, Busworld International, said: “This year’s show has been a tremendous success in terms of number of visitors which is more than double than last time.
Exhibitors want to see quality visitors because they are their potential buyers and when they see such good number of footfalls, they are satisfied. We are very pleased with the kind of response and this gives us a lot of faith for future editions of Busworld India.”
Mr. Rajan Sharma, MD, Interads Exhibitions Pvt. Ltd., the organizing partner of Busworld in India, said: “This year, the show has grown by 40 per cent in terms of floor space with the supplier area expanding from 1,700 sq. m. in the last edition to 2,500 sq. m. this time. On the vehicle side, apart from MG Group which has been the star attraction for the last few editions including the current one, we have got in first-time participants, namely, Tata Motors, Force Motors, Olectra-BYD (formerly Goldstone-BYD), Prakash Group (S.M. Kannappa) and Edison Electra which is a huge success for us. Close to 80 per cent of the exhibitors have already confirmed their participation for the next edition.”
“A leading OEM which has not participated this time has indicated its interest in participating next time. All these are testimony to the kind of brand equity that Busworld has created over the years in India,” he added.
Sharing his comments on Busworld’s partners for this year’s fair, Mr. Sharma added: “Our partners ASRTU and BOCI have been of great support to the show. We have had a very positive start in our relationship with ASRTU and are delighted with the kind of response the ASRTU conference, which was held on the sidelines of the fair, evoked.
The conference brought in the perspective of the government (policy maker) which is an extremely important part of the ecosystem.”
Following the success of this year’s edition, Busworld and Interads have already got their thinking caps on, to try and make the next edition a bigger and better one.
The Busworld President shared: “For the next edition, our aim is to double the number of OEMs and bus builders exhibiting at the show. Considering the size of the Indian market, we still do not have enough OEMs participating. We will try our best to get the brands who have not participated this time to join us next time.”
The Interads MD seconded his Belgian partner’s views: “Bus builders are an important part of the industry and we are targeting to get more players from this segment on board as exhibitors because this is a great platform for them to showcase their capability and build their brand in the market.”
“We are seeing an increasing trend of OEMs and bus builders using Busworld as a platform for launching new products which is a good sign because that’s exactly how it happens globally.”
In the following section, we bring you MOTORINDIA’s exclusive & comprehensive coverage of many of the exhibitors at Busworld India this year, with details on what makes each one unique and what they have in store to transform the Indian bus industry.