IN AN indication of increasing competition in the medium and heavy truck segment, new

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players have been increasing their sales and gaining market share.

Though the top two incumbents continue to dominate the segment, they have started feeling the heat of competition from the emerging players, who have been gradually increasing their share with competitive products.

New players such as VE Commercial vehicles and AMW have increased their sales and market share in the April-July 2011 period compared with the same pe riod last year. Sales of medium and heavy trucks stood at 87,046 units in first four months of current financial year compared with 80,462 units in a year ago.

While Tata Motors has seen increase in market share to 63.6 per cent during April-July 2011 period, from 62.4 per cent previous year, Ashok Leyland has seen fall in share from 24.4 per cent to 19.7 per cent this year. VE Commercial Vehicles (VECV), a joint venture between Eicher Motors and Volvo, has increased its share from 9.5 per cent to 10.7 per cent, while Asia Motor Works (AMW) saw its share increasing from 2.2 per cent to 3.7 per cent. “In heavy duty, we are now reasonably successful and in the geography where we are present we have been quite successful in 16 tonne category. Customers like the value proposition that we offer. Therefore, they are buying more and more of our trucks. So, we're already seeing some traction in the 16 tonne category and we are now going strongly after 25 and 31 tonnes as well, according to Siddhartha Lal, managing director and CEO of Eicher Motors.

With Mahindra Navistar expected to ramp up production and increase focus on heavy duty segment by VECV, competitive intensity is likely to increase going forward. New players are now in a position to expand product offerings and sales network.

VECV aims to hit sales of 1,000 units in heavy segment from the present level of 500 600 units. Meanwhile, Ashok Leyland and Tata Motors have also come out with new truck ranges to maintain their leadership position.

“Development of more efficient and sophisticated platforms by both Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland are targeted to meet challenges of competition from international OEMs and expanding presence in exports markets.

With gradually improving highways, domestic industry is also demanding more powerful and superior products to reduce transit perio,“ Subrata Ray, senior vice president ­ corporate ratings, said Icra.