United Kingdom-based JC Bamford Excavators Ltd. (JCB) is bringing into the country heavy equipment through ICON Equipment Solution Philippines Inc. (ICON), hoping to grab a foothold of the country’s heavy-equipment market.
JCB has partnered with ICON for the exclusive distributorship of its JCB heavy-equipment products in the Philippines.
ICON, a subsidiary of Concrete Masters Inc., is a new trading company established in 2013.
Aside from JCB, ICON also represents Industrial Vehicle Corp., an Italian truck, bus and light-commercial vehicle manufacturer; and Fiori Group, an Italian concrete equipment manufacturer.
JCB is one of the UK’s leading brands in construction and mining with agriculture, logistics and disaster-relief features. It has 22 factories in six countries, namely, the United States, the UK, Brazil, China, India and Germany.
ICON Chairman Fernando Imperial said they are targeting to compete with Korean-brand heavy equipment, particularly backhoe loader, and is banking on durability to compete with other brands.
“We are targeting to get a 20-percent share of the heavy- equipment market next year,” Imperial told reporters at a news conference in Makati City, confident that the steady economic growth poses an opportunity for a construction boom in the next decade.
The excavator market alone, he said, is a huge market.
Every year 2,500 excavators are sold in the Philippines. The excavator market consists of about 50 percent of the entire heavy-equipment market, which relies heavily on the construction, agriculture and mining sector.
Imperial said that aside from the construction industry, he has high hopes of increased government spending starting next year, which opens a window of opportunity for more infrastructure and construction projects that will support the growth of the heavy-equipment market.
Imperial said that, compared to other brands, JCB’s heavy equipment are proven to be fuel-efficient. He said customers can save in fuel expenses by simply using JCB.
He said many of the heavy equipment in the country are aging and will soon be replaced with more reliable equipment.
While he said JCB’s heavy-equipment products are more expensive, the company banks on the durability and cost-efficiency of JCB-manufactured heavy equipment.
ICON Marketing Director Christopher Imperial said JCB’s heavy equipment are also designed for disaster operations.
As part of the partnership, ICON will represent JCB in the Philippine market and is planning to increase its dealers in Luzon from two to five next year, hoping to make the company’s presence felt also in the Visayas and Mindanao. He admitted that the government has not spent a lot in the past. The construction industry will grow, he said, “if [the government] brings out that money for infrastructure, the kind of money that they have in their coffers.”
He said that, unlike before, the government has no money to spend for huge infrastructure projects.
Crisanto de la Cruz, president of ICON, said the mining and agriculture sectors are potential markets. He said JCB’s equipment are competitive, considering its durability and cost-efficiency when operated as compared to other brands.
He is confident of achieving the company’s conservative target of grabbing 10 per of the heavy-equipment market within the next three years, twice as the quota imposed by JCB when it granted the company exclusive distributorship for its products in the Philippines.
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