Hino sets sights on medium-duty crown

Hino Australia is gunning for outright domination of the medium-duty truck market, the company claiming the introduction of its new 500 Series Standard Cab range will see it return to outright sales leadership in the segment.

At the close of 2018 it was Isuzu on top in the medium-duty niche with 3307 sales, the figure representing strong growth of 15.2 per cent over the previous year, while Hino came home second by some margin – the 2187 units it achieved equating with a minor lift of 1.4 per cent.

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However, according to Hino Australia's General Manager – Brand and Franchise Development, Bill Gillespie, the new FC, FD and FE models will deliver the momentum required for medium-duty sales leadership.

"We believe this truck can take us back to being number one in the medium-duty segment," he said, when addressing media at the national press launch of the new 500 Series Standard Cab range, held in Canberra over April 4-5.

"We were number one back in 2006, 2007 – around that period – and we firmly believe this truck will take us back to being number one."

Hino Australia racked up record sales in both the light and heavy-duty segment last year, while sales were constrained in the medium-duty segment. Just two years after the introduction of the brand's "game-changing" 500 Series Wide Cab range, Hino said that relatively flat growth was down to supply issues of its outgoing 500 Series Standard Cab models.

"Last year we did suffer [in medium-duty]," said Mr Gillespie.

"We either poorly forecast the amount of trucks we needed for run-out last year and in fact we probably did because the market was so strong, or we were just very successful in run-out, and we did run out of medium-duty FC, FD and FE trucks in the middle of last year."

However, Mr Gillespie said the brand was very much in a growth phase in this country at present, and the arrival of the new, next-generation 500 Series Standard Cab would reinvigorate its growth in the niche.

"So far we've taken over 600 orders in the three-and-a-half, four months we've had the truck available to dealers," said Mr Gillespie.

"We're really only starting to deliver trucks to dealers, we've seen just over 200 delivered trucks, and our goal this year is to sell 1350 of these [new models].

"I would suggest at this rate we're on track to do that. In fact, maybe even a little bit better, but let's not get ahead of ourselves – there's still the rest of this year and a bunch of other things going on, but at this point it feels like we're on the right track."