Riding on strong demand from trailer makers, Fuwa, a leading global manufacturer of components and special parts for trucks, trailers and engineering vehicles, has clocked over 30 per cent growth in the Indian market in 2018. Fuwa is one of the most popular axle brands in the Indian trailer market, thanks to the right balance between good quality and competitive pricing in its offerings.
Talking exclusively to MOTORINDIA, Ms. Cecilia Cheng, Sales Manager (Sales Dept. of Truck Axles Division and International Sales Dept. of Trailer axles Division), GuangDong Fuwa Heavy Industries Co. Ltd., says: “The Indian market was quite stable throughout 2018 though the first few months of the current year have been challenging. We had sold close to 15,000 trailer axles in India in 2017 and have grown strongly in 2018, selling over 20,000 axles, close to 80 per cent of which were along with suspensions.”
Driven by factors such as trailer code, customers becoming more discerning and operators ready to pay more for better quality products, the Indian trailer market has seen a marked rise in product quality, with more organized players entering the hitherto predominantly unorganized segment. While there still remains a fair share of unorganized trailer builders, the market is moving in the right direction, towards better quality with special focus on safety and lower total cost of operation.
Ms. Cecilia shares: “India is no longer just a volume market, it is focusing a lot on quality. We are aware that we have growing competition in India but are working on our own strategy which includes improving our competitiveness by upgrading our production facilities in China. The rising maturity of the Indian market is good for Fuwa because we are focused on offering quality products at reasonable price – an approach that has been well accepted by customers, as seen from for our success in the market. We also have a very strong service network through our local partner KKTC who are getting stronger by the day. They are aggressively expanding their sales & service network across the country in order to remain closer to customers and the increasing sales are proof that customers are happy with their service.”
As part of its strategy to remain a front-runner in the global trailer axle space, Fuwa is setting up a new state-of-the-art facility in China. “We currently make all our products at our plant in China. We have one quality for the entire world; there is no compromise on quality for any market. To further upgrade our facilities, we have invested RMB 4 billion towards building a new axle plant that will be highly-automated and networked for intelligent production. The plant will be ready by 2020”, reveals the Sales Manager.
While trailer axles are what Fuwa is most popularly known for, the company offers many other products which make it a complete solution provider for under chassis components. Fuwa supplies truck axles to leading OEMs, including Ford, Volvo and Hino, apart from a few other Chinese brands. In India too, the company has been supplying its truck axles to Volvo-Eicher since 2012 and is exploring the possibility of catering to the other OEMs as well.