Sale of trucks grows 26.8% in quarter
Valor Econômico
The truck market started the year heated and it tends to be even heater in the last months of the year, in the eve of changes in the legislation of emission of pollutants. In the first quarter, the sales in the segment grew 26.8% compared to the same period last year. The market in general grew 4.7%.
As of January 2012, the engines of the new trucks will have to be adapted to the cleaner diesel (50 ppm - part per million - of sulfur). The new legislation, called Proconve 7, the equivalent to Euro 5 in Europe, will demand fleet owners to anticipate the purchases to escape the price increase. In the case of semi-heavy trucks, the growth in the sales in the first three months of the year was 43.8% compared to the first quarter of 2010.
This year, the industry started increasing the investments to increase the capacity. Mercedes-Benz decided to relocate part of the lines of vehicles from the plant of São Bernardo do Campo (SP) to the old automobile plant of Juiz de Fora (MG).
The companies are also renewing the products. Last week, the Italian Iveco presented the press the new Stralis Eurotronic, a heavy model with automatic transmission. A few weeks before, Ford launched the new line of the Cargo family, which received new bodywork design. At the beginning of the year, Volvo, which currently operates in the heavy segment, announced investments to start producing in Brazil the electronic gear boxes that are currently imported from Sweden.
Competition is fierce. According to the Fenabrave (National Federation of Distribution of Automotive Vehicles), in 2011, MAN was the leader in the total market of trucks with 30.93%, followed by Mercedes (23.38%), Ford (17.15%), Volvo (11.42%), Scania (8.34%) and Iveco (7.80%).