The ArvinMeritor Group has been in India for over three decades through its partnership with Bharat Forge. But the company has very limited aftermarket presence in India. To increase its presence in the aftermarket, the company has recently appointed Mr. Maninder Nanda as Director – Commercial Vehicles Aftermarket (CVA) at Arvin Meritor, India.
Mr. Nanda says: “As the global focus on aftermarket is growing we have a big opportunity in India to harness the Meritor brand and develop our business. We have a presence in the Indian market with our products for more than 25 years. About 700,000 Meritor axles are already on Indian roads. But we haven’t explored the opportunity in the aftermarket and hence, we are now building our presence in the Indian aftermarket”.
Currently, ArvinMeritor’s aftermarket presence is only for axle parts and some of the other captive components they produce. The distribution is mostly through OE spares. The company is now creating an independent Meritor brand and distribution network with sales team across India.
“We have hired about six people now and developing a complete distribution network for Meritor. We are setting up a huge warehouse in Pune to meet customer requirements. The warehouse will be of Meritor standards”, Mr. Nanda adds.
Increasing product portfolio
As mentioned earlier, globally ArvinMeritor’s aftermarket & trailer segment supplies axles, brakes, drivelines, suspension parts, and other replacement and remanufactured parts including transmissions to commercial vehicle aftermarket customer. Mr. Nanda says: “The growth strategy for India is to increase the product portfolio by offering axle parts, gear components, gear rings for all makes. Brake parts will be an important area of focus”.
Another important segment is driveline axle products, in which the company will have growth through 700,000 axles already on road. The company is also looking at opportunities in trailer axles. “Currently we are present in this segment in India in a small way but we are looking at entering this business in a big way. In the US, 80 per cent of the trucks have a trailer combination but in India it is just 10 per cent. We will see a big shift in the market in the coming years with the development of roads and improved movement of good traffic, which will result in a big market for trailer axles in India”, said Mr. Nanda.
“In India, as per the current estimates the trailer segment is expected to touch volumes of 100,000 units by 2013-14 from the current levels of 25,000 to 30,000 units. On an average of two to three axles in every trailer, there is a big market opening up for trailer axles in India. Currently there are a very few organized manufacturers in this segment. Meritor has a very strong brand in axle, both globally and in India, and we will leverage on our brand strength in trailer axles as well. This will be an important growth vertical in India for the Meritor brand and we expect to launch the products by mid-2011”, added Mr. Nanda.
Driveline components is another part of Meritor’s business globally. The company has close to 40 per cent share of OEMs in the drive lines business in North America. “In India, we are still not into the driveline business for components like prop-shafts and other critical component. Our plan is to get into the prop shaft and component business, to start with in the aftermarket. We have the designs, products and capabilities and we see a very big market for driveline components. Here again there very few players in the organized segment for driveline components in India. Currently, just 50 per cent of the driveline components come from organized sector”, says Mr. Nanda.
Remanufacturing
ArvinMeritor has set an ambitious growth target of growing multifold in the aftermarket business in India. Currently the aftermarket contributes to just five per cent of the total business. “Our concept of aftermarket business revolves around the lifecycle of the vehicle. We have products and solutions to offer across the lifecycle of the vehicle starting from the first owner of a new vehicle to the third owner of the same truck 8 to 10 years later. Each customer has a different requirement”.
Remanufacturing is another important part of ArvinMeritor’s aftermarket strategy and Mr. Nanda sees a big opportunity for remanufacturing in India as well. “We have brake remanufacturing centers in Canada and the US where we do about 250,000 brake shoe remanufacturing every month. In the US, we do remanufacturing of transmissions, automatic and manual, all makes. The quality we offer is something the unorganized sector can never match up to. We are very excited about the opportunity in the Indian aftermarket for remanufacturing”, Mr. Nanda adds.
Sales & distribution network
ArvinMeritor is setting up a centralized warehouse in Pune. This will be a warehouse and distribution center, with procurement and quality control team. The company is planning appoint distributors across India in the next six months. ArvinMeritor is also planning to have a Global Aftermarket Engineering team based out of Bangalore.
Mr. Nanda said: “We will use our technological expertise to serve our customers with good quality components. As we develop our Indian aftermarket presence, we will also have the opportunity of supplying from India to Meritor’s aftermarket business globally.
