Improving performance for Hyundai

Hyundai has seen strong sales in Europe 2015 and expects the growth trend to continue in 2016. Alain Worp, sales director for construction equipment at HHIE, says the company is also investing €30 million in building a new headquarters in Belgium, with its warehouse alone covering 13,000m2. “This project is expected to be finished by the end of 2016. It will be almost four times as big as the present facility,” he said.
April 12, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
Hyundai’s European sales director Alain Worp discussed the firm’s strong performance in Europe

236 Hyundai has seen strong sales in Europe 2015 and expects the growth trend to continue in 2016. Alain Worp, sales director for construction equipment at HHIE, says the company is also investing €30 million in building a new headquarters in Belgium, with its warehouse alone covering 13,000m2. “This project is expected to be finished by the end of 2016. It will be almost four times as big as the present facility,” he said.

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%.”

All videos

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Chinese manufacturers plan to compete globally
    June 18, 2015
    Chinese construction equipment firms have been building their operations in local markets – but are now looking to develop globally - Mike Woof writes In recent years Chinese construction equipment manufacturers have been able to capitalise on local demand in the home market. The rapid rate of expansion of transport infrastructure, fuelled by government spending, led to a massive need for construction machines. The country’s manufacturers have grown rapidly in size, investing enormously in factory capacity
    Read More
  • Volvo CE sees strong third quarter results
    October 20, 2017
    Volvo CE is bullish and claims a strong financial performance in its third quarter sales figures. The company claims it has made market share gains in key segments while its financial results have also benefited from good cost control and growing demand in most areas. Volvo CE says it has had an especially strong third quarter for 2017 with sales up 34% to US$1.847 billion (SEK15.1 billion) compared with $1.41 billion (SEK11.54 billion) for the same period in 2016. Meanwhile order intake for the third quart
    Read More
  • STRABAG reports satisfactory financial performance
    February 22, 2016
    Construction firm STRABAG says that its performance in the 2015 financial year was ‘satisfactory’ and that its outlook for 2016 is positive. “We closed an overall satisfactory year in 2015 with a higher output volume on nearly unchanged employee levels and a lower order backlog. In 2016 we want to maintain the output volume at its high level and raise our EBIT margin to 3%. Thanks to our improved risk management and cost reductions, we are confident that we will reach this goal after having also succeeded i
    Read More
  • LiuGong invests hard to be seen as made, tested and supported in Europe
    January 26, 2018
    LiuGong is investing hard in Europe, determined to be seen as a global player whose products are “made in Europe, tested in Europe and supported in Europe.” Along with new European headquarters based in Warsaw, LiuGong is also opening up a new European production line and a new continent-wide parts distribution centre at its Dressta manufacturing centre in Stalowa Wola. Geoff Hadwick reports
    Read More

Highlighted Content