Daimler Trucks Asia is continuing to regionalize its sales and service organization with the opening of a regional center for its commercial vehicles business in Southeast Asia.
Responsible for 18 markets, the new Daimler South East Asia Pte Ltd regional center (DSEA), based in Singapore, will oversee sales and service activities covering both FUSO trucks and buses as well as Mercedes-Benz trucks, buses and vans – from the urban light-duty Mercedes-Benz Citan transporter to the heavy-duty FUSO Super Great V.
At the Singapore location, Daimler’s new center for Southeast Asia benefits from the dynamic business climate, a potential for a highly qualified workforce, and the excellent infrastructure of the island state. With one of the best airports in the region and as the second largest container port in the world, Singapore is the central transport and logistics hub for the region. Mercedes-Benz has been active in Singapore since the 1950s, according to Daimler.
The business of Daimler’s commercial vehicle divisions in the Southeast Asia region covers 18 markets, including Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Vietnam. With 622 million inhabitants, the region is more populous than the USA (> 300 million) or Europe (> 500 million) and, with over 50 percent of the population under the age of 30, it offers dynamic prospects for the long-term future. In 2015 ten Southeast Asian countries (Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, the Philippines, Myanmar, Laos, Brunei and Cambodia) formed the ASEAN Economic Community in order to strengthen cross-border trade. Foreign direct investments (FDIs) in the ASEAN area rose from USD 85 billion in 2007 to USD 136 billion in 2014. Emerging economies with growing transport needs offer market opportunities both for Mercedes-Benz and for FUSO Commercial Vehicles – in 2015 the truck market in Vietnam, for example, grew by 92 percent, and the truck market in the Philippines grew by 27 percent. The overall market volume in Southeast Asia totaled around 225,000 vehicles (2015). Daimler said it sold more than 40,000 commercial vehicles in the Southeast Asia region in 2015.
Daimler Trucks Asia said it has started selling its all-new robust FUSO trucks range in Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam and has a plan to introduce these vehicles in the remaining markets. This new range is developed for the different needs of customers in growth markets.
