Kasun Illankoon caught up with Gregoire Blaise, Vice President at Renault Trucks, to discuss how the company has operated amidst this unprecedented year
2020
“Being a regional office supporting 21 countries the travel ban has been the main obstacle to conduct our business. Fortunately, our customers were often an essential part of any economy; most of our trucks were still operating during the highest confinement period and needed support from our partner’s importers. Keeping a very close relationship with our network by being creative and supportive, we believe that we strengthened these crucial partnerships.”
“We relaunched two markets successfully and had a market share growth target for our region that we will meet. At the same time, unfortunately, we will miss our sell-in target due to the drop in the total market, estimated at around 30%.”
Market Share
“Apart from Oman, where we have seen a concerning decrease, all countries are either flat or improving, while Saudi Arabia and Egypt are significantly enhancing their market share in 2020 with promising momentum.
We’ve also seen an increase in sales in our used trucks, and we believe that we still have room to improve to better address this untapped market.”
Renault’s T X -PORT model
“With the market share growth, our Renault Trucks T X-Port is the second positive development for the
Greater Middle East region. We see more and more importers taking advantage of this complimentary offer to address their customers’ needs.
This success is based on the trust given by our unique factory-made and certified downgrade from Euro 6 to Euro 3 solution combined with our standard warranty.”
Strengthening Partnerships during the Pandemic
“As for all kinds of relations, when things get tough, you can better assess their quality. By being genuine to each other and as supportive as possible, we indeed feel that our relationships have grown stronger.
Meaningful but straightforward initiatives towards our end customers, such as our six months additional warranty to offset the confinement period or our monthly Drivers Tips.”
