Completing its 10th anniversary and having stayed cool on the move while supplying and servicing more than 6,000 bus air-conditioning and transport refrigeration units has resulted in Trans ACNR reversing the downtrend in sales of commercial vehicles in India. An impressive 25pc growth over the previous year is indeed vindication of the company attitude of remaining positive in testing and turbulent times. Trans ACNR has thus set the standards of both sales and service of the bus air-conditioning and transport refrigeration industry in India.
About the company
Trans ACNR Solutions Pvt. Ltd. is a leading supplier of bus air-conditioning systems and truck refrigeration solutions in India. The company represents two global brands in the Indian market – Hwa Sung Thermo, Korea for truck refrigeration systems and Jingyi Automobile Air-Conditioning Company Ltd., China for bus air-conditioning systems. With the Indian commercial vehicle segment poised for strong growth in the coming years, Trans ACNR is keen on leveraging on the huge potential in the country, especially in its focus areas of air conditioning and refrigeration.
Genesis and growth
The company was started in 2003 by a group of young engineers and has since grown to become one of India’s most reputed companies in the field of bus air-conditioning and truck refrigeration, mainly driven by its strong technical know-how in the field.
In furthering customer expectations, Trans ACNR had recently set up and commissioned a production facility covering over 1.5 acres at Shahjahanpur (Neemrana) in Rajasthan. With a total investment of Rs. 17.5 crores, the state-of-the-art facility will have a capacity of rolling out up to 6,000 units annually, comprising a unique testing facility as well. The plant meets the growing demand for bus air-conditioning units in India by making top-of-the-line products ranging from 8 KW to 32 KW. Already, more than 600 of its units manufactured in India have withstood the rigours and demands of the Indian summer.
The Aluminum (A series) and Intra- City (E series) of bus-air-conditioners are fully imported from the mother plant of Guangzhou Jingyi Automotive Air- Conditioning Co. Ltd. while the transport refrigeration units are also fully imported from South Korea, bearing the flagship brand of Hwa Sung Thermo. Machines manufactured by Hwa Sung Thermo are most suitable for hot, humid, tropical conditions, as in India. The year 2013 saw 300 of its units being supplied to counter the testing conditions in the Dubai market.
Strong service backup
In India, over 2,000 Hwa Sung units have withstood the test of time over a decade of growth, now providing Trans ACNR the unshakeable confidence of providing its customers with 3 or 5 years end-to-end warranty backup.
With the transport air-conditioning and refrigeration industry being a service-driven one, Trans ACNR has company-owned sales and service centres in Delhi, Mohali, Bangalore, Cochin and Chennai with residence sales and service technicians located at Patna, Jamshedpur, Udaipur, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Kolkata and Hyderabad. Its dealer network also covers Indore, Lucknow, Ahmadabad, Guwahati, Surat, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmednagar and Goa.
According to Mr. Prem Sharma, CEO, Trans ACNR: “We are strongly working of service networking and in near future, we will deploy service technicians at every 400 km to meet timely service requirement of customers. Not only that, the service & repair down shall be improved enabling customers to generate maximum revenue from optimum utilisation of vehicles operation.”
Products speak louder than people
About a decade ago, Parveen Travels, a trend-setter and leader in the tourism and travel industry, bought 10 air-conditioning units from Trans ACNR for its fleet of large buses. The year 2013 has seen these units change over to newly-built buses, continuing to provide the pride of performance to their fleet of air-conditioned buses.
Mr. Shatrughan Kumar, observes: “Our vision has always been to provide our customers with the best of products, exceeded by unmatched and dedicated service across the length and breadth of our country. Recently on my tours of various parts of India, I was deeply delighted when customers conveyed to me that after having tried and tested other brands over the years, along with ours and have felt tangible and palpable difference in our products as well as attitudes of our services. This kind of a joy far exceeds any sales figures!”
Confident of the future
Competition from global brands and other Indian manufacturers does not undermine its confidence. Mr. Shatrughan Kumar says that the current volumes and market spread are not favourable for big players with the operational costs likely to be extremely high for such players, which will make their products unviable in comparison with established brands like Jingyi and Hwa Sung Thermo.
The future road map ahead for Trans ACNR is to take its current annual turnover of Rs. 50 crores to Rs. 300 crores by the end of another decade. The company is debt-free and has established its presence in the transport air-conditioning and refrigeration segment and is looking forward to expanding into cold storage applications too in the coming years.