Mr. R. Ramakrishnan, Vice President – Sales and Marketing (CVBU), Tata Motors, said: “The construction and mining segment is a significant part of Tata Motors’ overall CV business and constitute to nearly 40% of the total heavy trucks sold. Traditionally, customers just bought a truck and used it for construction and mining purpose. We have now started offering customised solution based on the market requirement. In pace with the growth in infrastructure and the mining segment in the country we have developed a range of products under the brand CONSTRUCK. In the last few year this has grown to become a sizeable chunk of the total portfolio”.
Tata Motors offers a complete range of tippers and trucks for the construction and mining segment based on the application and customer requirement. Mr. Ramakrishnan (Ramki to his close friends) said: “We have made many changes to the product based on the usage pattern and customer requirement. Most of these trucks and equipments used in construction and mining segment are off-road vehicles. Therefore the torque and power required is of a different nature to climb out of slushy, muddy terrain. Also typically these vehicles are not used during monsoon season which means they are in use for only 8 to 10 months in a year and during this period they will be operating day and night hence reliability factor should be very high. Taking these factors into account today we offer higher power on these vehicles than the traditional on road trucks of equivalent tonnage. The aggregates have been made heavier so that the reliability factor is greatly enhanced”.
At the top-end is Prima, a 31-tonner tipper truck with an 8X4 configuration. Currently it comes with an 380 hp engine and very soon, the company is planning to launch another model in the Prima range with 420 hp engine. Due for introduction is 280 hp, a 31-tonner in the Prima range, which is aimed at the conventional road construction projects. This will be a more productive vehicle for the customers as they can do work faster with lesser number of vehicles.
On the 25-tonne model, Tata Motors traditionally offered a model with 160 hp engine. Now the company has launched two models with 180 hp and 230 hp engines and very soon it will launch a 280 hp tipper truck.
Deep mining is one segment in which Tata Motors has limited presence. This segment is currently dominated by Volvo, Mercedes and Scania. But with the Prima range, the company is confident that it will be able to offer similar performance tippers at lower prices. “The prices of the Prima range have not been announced, but it will be significantly lower than similar products which are available in the market. We will launch tippers from the Prima range in the next couple of months,” Ramki said.
But Tata Motors has gone beyond just tippers. It is now offering a complete range of solutions for the construction industry including concrete mixers, bulkers, boom pumps and cranes. “We are also working closely with our group company Telcon, in offering solutions like concrete mixers, cranes and other solutions for construction industry. The target audience is the same for Tata Motors and Telcon in the construction and mining segment. Our products complement each other and increasingly we are also working with Tata Capital to offer a complete package”.
“We are actually addressing the range, creating commercial packages and a synergy with Telcon and Tata Capital and creating technical packages by offering products which are more suited for construction and mining rather than just offering a truck chassis to the customer”, Ramki added.
This clearly demonstrates the company’s intent to offer fully-built solutions to its customers. From a revenue point of view it contributes much higher than the average truck sold. Currently in the CONSTRUCK brand the company is selling close to 50 per cent of the units as fully-built, and in the next few years this will go up to 90 per cent of the vehicles sold. Even within the CONSTRUCK range, 90 per cent of the multiaxle tipper trucks are already sold as fully built units. It’s only the 4X2 tippers which are being sold as runaway chassis, and this is also slowly moving towards being sold as fully built units.
Ramki further observed that offering a complete solution means the customer can put the vehicle on road from day 1. It improves productivity and will cut down unproductive time for the customer.
Last year, out of the total 120,000 heavy trucks sold by Tata Motors, close to 50,000 were for construction and mining operations. The total market size for trucks in the construction and mining segment would be anywhere between 75,000 to 80,000 units per annum, which gives Tata Motors a two-third marketshare in this segment.
In fact, the initial forecast was that the market size for tipper trucks alone will cross the 1,00,000-mark by 2011. The current recession has upset the schedule, and it is now expected that the industry will hit this volume only by 2012, and Tata Motors is targeting a significant share of this market.
