- The firm is confident the market will come back since the AEC occurs
Volvo Group (Thailand) Company Limited, the assembler and sole distributor of UD Trucks in Thailand, has introduced 15 UD Questers to serve the AEC scheme which will take place by the end of this year pushing the heavy duty truck market to recover.
Mr. Jacques Michel, President of Volvo Group (Thailand) Company Limited, said since the company introduced UD Quester in 2013, it has been given a number of valuable comments from customers and Volvo Group had listened all comments seriously in accordance with the firm's philosophy causing the firm to develop UD Trucks to fit with the customers' requirements.
"We do believe the customers' feedback is valuable voice for us. We listen and bring all issues to develop our product to fit with their requirements and now we are confident that UD Quester will be well accepted by the market. We have launched 15 new models under Quester Series to serve their variety needs," said Mr. Michel.
He said the new UD Quester had been designed to serve variety of customers' needs, including short and medium routes transportation and long haul transportation for agriculture, cement mixer, mining work, container transportation, automobile transportation and petroleum & chemical transportation. The new model offers one more 8-litre engine in addition to the existing 11-litre engine to fit with customers' requirements in various businesses as well as the business size of customers.
He said the 8-litre engine was the latest development of UD Trucks which offered lower fuel consumption with higher torque at lower RPM producing 280 hps and 330 hps in addition to the current 370 hps of 11-litre engine. The new models also provide more applications of 4X2, 6X2 and 8X4 in addition to the current only 6X4.
"The specifications and new engine size enabling us to offer full range of UD Trucks," said Mr. Michel and adding that the full range launching also come together with nationwide service centers and genuine parts supply, and competitive service agreement as well as the telematics system.
Meanwhile, Mr. Michel commented that the massive Government's spending budget of 130,000 million baht and the implementation of infrastructure construction would push the Thai economy to grow encouraging UD Trucks to be confident that the heavy duty market would gain more benefit from the Government's policies.
Moreover, he said Thailand being a part of Asian Economic Community or AEC by the end of this year would encourage the heavy duty truck market to grow, especially in demand of high performance trucks which would serve long haul transportation of customers who had business with other countries around the Thailand.
"In the future, the land transportation will be borderless in accordance with AEC agreement. That is why the logistics companies will have to purchase new higher performance trucks to fit with long haul transportations," said Mr. Michel.
He added that UD Trucks had seen the change for many years in advance, pushing Volvo Group to invest more than 3,000 million baht in nationwide sales and service dealers increasing the number of dealers from five to 15 plus one private dealer and now they were completed for service, especially in the strategic provinces, including Tak, Khon Khaen and Surat Thani.
"We have thought this policy before the AEC was announced. Off course, this is from our long-term planning and now I confirm that our dealers are 100% ready to serve the customers from both local and neighboring countries which have transported goods and products from one country to another country through Thailand. This means all trucks sold by Volvo Group in any country will be serviced in Thailand at these dealers," he said.
Mr. Michel said Volvo Group had introduced many marketing activities for UD Trucks since the beginning of this year starting from the campaign of "getting money first, paying instalment later" allowing SME customers to utilize their new UD Trucks for earnings before paying installment. The company also organized 10 nationwide roadshows to push sales and latest activity is developing a new clip being uploaded in YouTube showing lady driver of UD Trucks which explains the truck is easy to drive and please visit https://youtu.be/HR7xhDpwtSc for more details.
He said UD Trucks also introduced a new campaign during 21 – 26 September at the launching event offering customer who ordered one Quester one-baht weight gold or four Questers five-day package tour for one person to Japan.
"The full range introduction today will show our confident that we are ready to penetrate the market which will grow when the Thai economy is to recover in the near future," said Mr. Michel.