Daimler to Produce Sprinter Vans in Russia

Content provided by BenzInsider.com

Daimler AG is recognized as the biggest manufacturer of trucks worldwide, and now it is expanding its Russian commercial-vehicle presence by manufacturing Sprinter vans as part of a partnership with OAO GAZ of billionaire Oleg Deripaska.

This endevour entails some 100 million euro (around $131 million) in investments from Daimler in order to make the plant ready to produce a planned 250,000 units of the delivery van annually. The GAZ plant can be found in Nizhny Novgorod.

Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche said that the Russian commercial-vehicle
market “is offering major growth prospects,” and of course it would be
foolish to ignore such an opportunity. That’s why Daimler is
capitalizing on the emerging market in the country, and by 2020 it
expects Russia to demand 275,000 units of light commercial vehicles each
year. The Russian market currently draws 177,000 units currently.

Currently, Daimler is really enjoying its dominance over the light
truck segment. Sales in Brazil, China, India and Russia have increased
by 64 percent over recent 8-month figures. Sales have increased by 27
percent over a nine-month period, and the van unit of the company saw a
28-percent increase over the past eight months. Total revenue increased
to 5.6 billion euros, thanks largely to a 44-percent increase in
production to 160,000 vehicles.