An after-sales service approach to support all units that may be placed in the Mexican market, as well as an organization of authorized master dealers to market the units in the country, are the differentiators that Dongfeng will offer in the Mexican market.
At the opening of its corporate offices in the Santa Fe area of Mexico City, Gabriel de Uriarte Occelli, CEO and President of the Board of Directors of Dongfeng Camiones México, emphasized that this new business entity will represent the Dongfeng DFMC division (business unit of Dongfeng Motor Corporation), which focuses on Class 6 to 8 trucks, as well as vocational trucks, which will be the portfolio with which they will work in the Mexican market.
De Uriarte stated that although there is a Dealer Agreement with another business group that has sales for the Querétaro region, State of Mexico and Mexico City , talks are already underway to achieve the same strategy for the market and ensure that customers are not affected in the after-sales and product sales strategies.
With more than 20 years of experience in the transportation industry, Gabriel de Uriarte anticipated that there is a defined strategy for entering the Mexican market, where the presence of other Chinese brands has been analyzed and areas of opportunity have been identified.
“The market is hungry for serious brands that really have a structure and a corporate order, and I see an opportunity there, because today there are brands that are involved in scandals and others whose distributors are in the backyard, that is where we think we can take part,” said Gabriel de Uriarte.
The route that Dongfeng DFMC will follow in Mexico is the implementation of a service network and for this purpose a parts warehouse has been implemented that will initially have 2,500 square meters (m2), by 2027 it will reach 5,000 m2 and in 2030 it will have 8,000 m2.
“Although we will initially bring 130 trucks starting next November, our service support will consider support as if we had 500 units on the market ,” anticipated the CEO of Dongfeng Trucks, who also shared that talks are underway with various business groups to end the year with six distributors, although the goal is to have coverage with 24 points nationwide in the short term.
Dongfeng Trucks’ initial portfolio will consist of the GX tractor units, a 6×4 configuration model with a 560 horsepower (hp) Cummins engine, 2,650 Nm of torque and Eaton automatic transmission.
The other model to be introduced to the national market is the KX, which has the same power and torque, but with manual transmission and will be available in diesel and natural gas.
The 130 units of the GX and KX models that will be introduced to the Mexican market starting in November will have engines that comply with EURO 6 regulations, which will be in force in Mexico starting in January 2025. “Currently, the units being introduced are EURO 5.”
The portfolio also includes the KR model, a 260 hp rigid truck with ZF transmission (an electric version is available), the KL, also a rigid truck with a 340 hp engine (an electric version is also available), and the KC vocational 6×4 arrangement with a 400 hp engine and 1,800 Nm of torque.
Clear accounts
In Mexico, Dongfeng Motor Corporation currently has a presence with its DFAC division to serve the light truck segment and trucks up to Class 4 , which is represented by a group of investors from Central America. The heavy truck division called DFMC is currently represented by the master dealer Energon, as well as Dongfeng Trucks , which has representation for the rest of the national territory.
Guochao Liang, representative of Dongfeng Motor Corporation, described that the structure as they are present in Mexico is oriented to serve all market divisions where they have a presence, and that even in China, they are served with different production plants.
De Uriarte Occelli anticipated that there is already an assembly plant in Jalisco , where the tractor trucks that will arrive in CKD (Complete Knock Down) will be assembled and that will allow the tractor trucks to be assembled on Mexican soil.
“We are in talks with our colleagues at DFAC and even with Energon to take advantage of economies of scale to assemble all the trucks imported at this plant, and in this way be more competitive. These are the actions we want to send to customers that they can trust the brand,” described Gabriel de Uriarte.
