What will drive demand for excavators in FY2023-2024?
Excavators are highly versatile machines; they can undertake various jobs including demolition with attachments like hydraulic rock breakers, concrete cutters etc. Their demand will be propelled by upcoming road, irrigation, and urban infrastructure projects.
The market for excavators is likely to grow 15% more as compared to the last fiscal. Base excavators of 7 to 20 ton class will account for bulk sales, given the large scale urban infrastructure development and housing projects, while the big quarry owners operating plants of 250 to 300 tph will look for mid-size excavators.
How is Volvo gearing up to promote its excavators to meet the projected demand?
Volvo CE excavators have high fuel efficiency, are powerful and are structurally very robust. Since the 20-ton will be meeting most of the demand, we will market our EC210D and EC210DL to quarry owners and to road contractors for handling granular sub-base materials. We will market our EC210 excavators to small and medium-sized quarry owners and our bigger EC300D and EC 380D to large size quarry owners who are operating 350 tph or higher capacity plants.
In fact, our single EC380D excavator can replace two 21-ton to deliver the same or higher performance, if required, with varied engine operational modes as per the application requirements.
To drive sales of our 20-ton excavators, we are making value additions to enhance their quality while maintaining their price parity. We will provide the machines with attachments like concrete cutting, shearing machines, hydraulic hammers etc. We are also exploring opportunities to promote our 20-ton excavators in the metal and concrete recycling industry with custom built attachments.
We will position our EC300D and EC380D in the marble and granite mining segment for handling blocks. Though wheel loaders have been making in roads in this segment with their block handling attachments, there is an issue of affordability with the small and medium-sized mine owners.
What is the company’s strategy to promote its products?
To drive sales of our excavators and other equipment, in 2022 we created a new business vertical for Equipment as a Service. Its objective is to promote our products as a service to customers as per their application needs. Services include the machine itself, its operation and full maintenance for the defined period of the services needed by the customer.
We want to free customers from the worry of owning assets so that they can focus on their core activities and get the desired productivity. We will help them achieve the desired throughput through guaranteed availability of our machines, along with operational support. We are confident that our digital telematics tools will ensure minimal downtime of our customers’ machines.
Today, we have 20 dealers who are marketing and servicing our products across the country.
