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Mr Piermarco Plebani, Managing Director, Same Greaves Tractors Ltd, Dr Ing Luigi Coppa, Sales and Marketing Director, Same Deutz-Fahr group, and Mr Kamal Bali, Commercial Director (Asia), Same Greaves Tractors, at a press conference in Chennai on Thursday.

CHENNAI, May 16

SAME Greaves Tractors Ltd, to be renamed as Same Deutz-Fahr India (P) Ltd, will shortly launch tractors with 42 HP, 60 HP and 70 HP capacities. The company will focus on the upper middle and top end of the tractor market in the country.

(It may be recalled that the Same Deutz-Fahr group of Italy bought out the stake held by Greaves in Same Greaves Ltd and Same Greaves Tractors Ltd. Same Greaves Ltd, in which Greaves held 51 per cent, manufactures engines complying with Euro I emission norms for tractors and other applications like generating sets and marine propulsion. Same Greaves Tractors is a 50:50 joint venture and has its plant at Ranipet in Tamil Nadu.)

Same Greaves had test-marketed its tractors for the last two years and now plans to step up sales in the country. It hopes to get a 10 per cent market share of the upper middle and top end segments in the next three years, company officials told a press conference here on Thursday.

The Same group has so far invested about $20 million in the two companies, of which at least $5 million will go towards acquiring Greaves' stake. The Ranipet factory has a capacity to produce 30,000 tractors and 30,000 diesel engines.

Mr Piermarco Plebani, Managing Director, Same Greaves, said that the tractors had a localisation level of 98 per cent and the company was importing only about 20 pieces of components, mainly because it had not been able to find suppliers here. However, the company hoped to develop vendors for the remaining components so that the tractors were fully indigenised. He said the engines being produced now met Euro I emission norms and the company was ready to achieve Euro II homologation. At present, the company manufactured tractors in the 35-50 HP range. Its main markets were in north India and the company hoped to increase its market share in the southern States too.

The company did not have to make any fresh investment as it could produce up to 30,000 units at the existing plant. All the attention now would be to push sales, for which the marketing and sales team had been restructured.

Mr Kamal Bali, Commercial Director (Asia), said the company would not push for numbers but would work towards ensuring that Same was the most respected brand in the segments it would be operating in. The company had about 60 dealers and this number would be increased to around 100 in the next three months. It would customise the tractors to suit each market. He said that the company expected to end 2002 with a turnover of Rs 35 crore and achieve a turnover of Rs 75 crore in its first full year of operations

To a question, Dr Ing. Luigi Coppa, Sales and Marketing Director, Same Deutz-Fahr group, said the Indian company would start looking at exports to the neighbouring countries and South-East Asian countries once it started producing tractors in the 50-70 HP range.

The Same group, he said, had plants in Italy, Germany and Poland, and Europe accounted for almost 90 per cent of its $ 900 million turnover in 2001.

The group had opened a commercial office in North America, which was a large market, and hoped to strengthen its presence. But, that would happen only after the Indian operations improved and exports to South East Asia from India took off.

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Same Deutz-Fahr set to launch new tractor range

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