South Africa is a key market for Scania. During his visit to the country, which coincided with the Johannesburg International Motor Show (JIMS), Scania’s Henrik Fagrenius, executive regional director sales and services management Southern Africa, Asia and Oceania, spoke to Simon Foulds about the company’s presence in Africa.

“Scania South Africa and Scania sub-Sahara arevery important for Scania and will grow in importance in the coming year as well. Since the markets here are growing and we are growing within the markets as well, Africa definitely plays a strategic role for our global growth going forward.

“We have already decided to go back into Mozambique and establish ourselves there again, so it is definitely a very important area for us.”

Africa

Fagrenius says: “Mozambique has a very interesting development – there area lot of mining activities and also natural resources in the north. We also see an increase in transport from Beira harbour into Africa and there are already quite a few used Scania’s that have found their way into Mozambique.We want to be there and support the existing customers and take the opportunity to sell both new and used trucks.

“Having a big operation in Tanzania also helps. We have been there for 40 years and we are in a very good position in the market and selling quite a number of trucks there, both used and new.

There is a big difference within Africa if you compare the markets – Morocco versus Tanzania, for example – but the customer is looking for the same thing.

Similar customers

“The professional customer in Africa is not different from the professional customer in Sweden, Germany or India (where I was MD). Professional customers are looking for the best deal for them. They want total cost of ownership,including fuel efficiency, uptime, service ability, repair and maintenance.”

The future

“If we take the South Africanmarket and compare this year to last year,you will see how the company has grown its volumes by 40%. We have also increased our market share from 8.1 to 10.2 %. In Nambia, Botswana and Tanzania, we have kept our premium position and due to the fact that we have a very strong captive service network in all these countries, I see a great potential for Scania in Africa in the coming years. The market will grow as such and we will grow in the market.

Fagrenius says the company is expecting even more growth.“It will be based on our existing product, but we will always come up with new development. I think we have a very good development platform product at the moment;we will keep on developing and it will be based on our current products.”

Total solution

“We are offering customers the total solution to driving their business and I believe our strong service captive network is key to our success factors in Southern Africa.”