•	Major milestone achieved for Daimler Trucks Asia moving ahead under new Asia Business Model

Kawasaki, Japan/Chennai, India - Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation (MFTBC), one of Asia’s leading commercial vehicle manufacturers, today announced that Daimler India Commercial Vehicles Pvt. Ltd. (DICV), its strategic counterpart as Daimler Trucks Asia, has rolled out the 5,000th truck from its plant at Oragadam, near Chennai.

After a successful start-of-production of its BharatBenz range of trucks in June 2012, DICV launched its heavy-duty trucks (3 models) on 26 September, 2012, and its light/medium-duty range in February, this year. Subsequently, MFTBC launched its new strategic FUSO truck range for export from India to the growth markets in Asia and Africa on May 23, 2013, at DICV’s Oragadam Plant. MFTBC and DICV are well underway joining forces together as “Daimler Trucks Asia” under the new “Asia Business Model.”

DICV is stabilizing its production line of all its launched models. Currently, DICV produces the 2523, 3123, 2528, 914, 1214 & 1217 (Heavy, Medium/Light-duty rigid & tipper trucks) with several variants. The truck was rolled out in the presence of Mr. Sven Graeble, DICV Vice President of Operations and Manufacturing Engineering, and Mr. P. Sriram, DICV General Manager of Production.

The Asia Business Model is an integral component of Daimler Trucks Global Excellence Program ‘DT#1 (Daimler Trucks Number One)’ designed to secure Daimler Trucks leadership position in the key growth markets in Asia and Africa. By leveraging its operational strengths in Kawasaki, Japan (MFTBC), and Chennai, India (DICV), the new business model is targeted to pull in further unit sales increases, thus, as “Daimler Trucks Asia” making a major contribution to Daimler Trucks overall sales target of over 500,000 units sold in the year 2015 and more than 700,000 trucks in the year 2020.

The new business model enables Daimler Trucks Asia to fully leverage its product portfolio, R&D network, joint sourcing, and global production footprint. Short-term joint projects are already underway in areas including sourcing, logistics, and shared IT systems and platforms. Joint project committees are also in place to leverage strengths of each side. Both companies, MFTBC and DICV, will remain as independent legal entities.

Based in Kawasaki, Japan, Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation (MFTBC) is one of Asia's leading commercial vehicle manufacturers. In 2012, the company sold a total of about 174,000 vehicles including light-, medium- and heavy-duty trucks and buses. Daimler AG owns 89.29% of MFTBC shares and various Mitsubishi group companies own 10.71% of MFTBC shares. MFTBC is an integral part of the Daimler Trucks Division of Daimler AG.

Daimler India Commercial Vehicles (DICV) is a 100% subsidiary of Daimler AG, Stuttgart, Germany. DICV will produce light, medium and heavy-duty commercial vehicles for the Indian volume market, under the brand name – BharatBenz. The products will be customized to serve all major customer segments, from owner-drivers up to large fleet operators.