He continued, “Last year was very good. We sold more than 8,000 units and we had a turnover of €216 million, which was a record.”
He added, “We consolidated sales for our heavy machines of 10tonnes and above.”
The firm’s performance in the excavator market has been particularly good, although it has also seen steadily growing sales for wheeled loaders and mini excavators. Worp is also confident that this sales trend will continue in 2016 and said, “We aim for a 15% increase in construction equipment and for spares, we aim for an ambitious 17% while we will invest in our mini excavator business.”
The strongest markets for Hyundai in Europe were Germany, the UK and France but the firm has also seen an improvement in its performance in Southern Europe. Worp said, “It is getting better. After six years of decline the bottom has been reached and demand is increasing.” He added that demand in Spain and Portugal has seen an upswing while Italy is “modestly positive and a 10-15% increase is a fair estimate for last year and this year”.
The firm has new machines coming to market and a spokesperson for Hyundai said, “It’s not just an update of the engines.”
Hydraulics, controls and electronics have been improved as well as the machines having Stage IV compliant diesels and the spokesperson added, “We see increased fuel efficiency of up to 15%.”
