VE Commercial Vehicles launches Eicher Skyline Pro Series buses

Despite the sluggish market market conditions in bus market, VE Commercial Vehicles (VECV), a 50:50 joint venture between Sweden’s Volvo Group and Eicher Motors has launched Eicher Pro series of light duty for school and staff category.

According to VECV,  new buses will meet the demands of the emerging premium market segment by providing enhanced passenger safety, fuel efficiency and comfort with superior aesthetics. Eicher Skyline Pro buses are available in school, staff and tourist variants with seating capacity ranging from 36 to 60 per the segment requirement.

Shyam Maller, senior vice president, sales, marketing and aftermarket, VECV said, “With a number of corporate houses expanding their facilities and recruiting in large numbers in major metros and cities, the demand for executive commute buses is set to go up. However, the overall bus market has shown de-growth in the last two years. But our market share has increased and in future, the demand will grow. The Eicher brand enters a new phase of growth and consolidation in the commercial vehicle market.”

However, the light, medium and heavy duty bus market has shown de-growth in the last two years. LMV buses market has gone down  by 7. 5 per cent and HMV is down by 27 per cent. During January to October 2014, total number of light and medium duty buses were 32, 542 units as against 35,136 units during the same period last year. The heavy duty buses slold during January to October this is of 14,862 units as against 20, 548 units in the same period last year.

Since, 2008 the total investment in this JV is of Rs 2500 crore. The Skyline Pro Range is being manufactured at Eicher's bus body plant at Baggad near Indore in Madhya Pradesh. The company has made investment of Rs 250 croe for the bus facility. The annual capacity of this plant is of manufacturing 15000 buses. The company has 15.7 per cent market share in the bus category. The plant is operational since July 2013. Eicher also offers full body repair solutions to its customers.

The company is currently in discussion with various state governments and city authorities to provide these buses for public transportation. Under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, (JNNURM) the Government has sanctioned purchase of buses for various mission. The company is set to add one big order of 560 buses from Bihar and another order of 65 buses from Indore. It has supplied more than 3000 buses to the various state transport undertakings(STUs). In Maharashtra, there are 38 buses while it has supplied highest in Gujarat of 1101 units.