After the Guangqi Hino 700 series heavy trucks went offline in September, taking the Guangzhou Auto Show as an opportunity, it made its debut at the major domestic auto show. At the Guangzhou Auto Show, GAC Hino teamed up with the entire series of models to become one of the biggest highlights of commercial vehicle booths. The Nanfang Daily reporter interviewed Li Shao , the executive deputy general manager of GAC Hino , for the future of the heavy truck market.
700 series sales reached expectations
Reporter: How is the sales of the Guangzhou Automobile Hino 700 Series? How do you view the sales prospects of China's heavy truck market?
Li Shao: Guangzhou Automobile's Hino 700 series was officially sold after the National Day. At present, there are more than 300 orders and 120 vehicles have been delivered, basically meeting our expectations. We are optimistic about the outlook for the heavy truck market next year. Under the influence of economic construction, the demand for heavy trucks will continue to grow. Although the commercial vehicle market is still showing negative growth from the data for the whole year, sales volume has recovered to historic levels in the second half of the year and has increased slightly. In January of this year, the sales volume of the national market was only more than 1,000 vehicles. At present, the monthly sales volume has reached about 20,000 vehicles. The growth momentum in the commercial vehicle market is relatively good, so we believe that the commercial vehicle market will continue to maintain its growth trend next year.
Reporter: Guangzhou Automobile Co., Ltd. Hino pioneered the commercial vehicle 3S shop model. What is the current situation of the development of the network and what plans are there? Is it possible to consider decentralizing product sales to some hypermarkets that run multiple brands after increasing sales pressure?
Li Shao: There are currently 16 GAC Hino 3S stores that have been officially put into use, and more than 30 dealers have already obtained shop qualifications, mainly concentrated in the more economically developed regions such as the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta. This is also the sales of domestic heavy trucks. Key markets. In the future, we will expand our network plan according to the sales situation. GAC Hino has a sales model similar to the car sales model in terms of sales channel management. The 3S shop authorized by GAC Hino has the functions of sales, maintenance and spare parts supply. At present, our expansion of online channels will be consistent with our current capacity and sales growth, and the network model of 3S stores will not change.
The first task is to deepen the heavy truck market
Reporter: What are the competition models of Guangzhou Automobile's Hino 700 series? Do you consider export sales in the future?
Li Shao: Our competitors include domestic heavy trucks and imported heavy trucks that sell for more than 300,000 yuan. Among domestic competitive products, we have strong competitiveness in terms of vehicle quality and use reliability. Among imported competing products, we are even more price-conscious. For example, the imported Hino heavy truck series is priced at about 1 million yuan. After domestic production, the highest selling price has dropped to 600,000 yuan, a drop of 30%. For the issue of future exports, we haven’t considered for the time being. We must first do a good job in the domestic market first. We can only export if we have a good brand and sales.
Reporter: At present, the domestic commercial vehicle market, micro-cards, light trucks account for a relatively large market share, GAC Hino has considered the continued production of light trucks or the development of independent brands?
Li Shao: Hino and Toyota have many truck products. In the future, some new models will be considered for development. However, our priority is to continue cultivating the heavy truck market. The current work focus is to focus on quality, cost, and service. In fact, it is indeed not easy to succeed with foreign brands of commercial vehicles. But as long as the brand is established, the product line extension work is done well. It can be said that as long as the current 700 series is done, everything is possible.
In addition, GAC Guangzhou Motors has a number of light truck series. We will also improve the existing chassis and cab according to market demand and Hino’s advanced technology.