ExxonMobil bullish on India’s growing CV market

US-based energy conglomerate ExxonMobil has hinged its growth in the Indian market on the rising demand for commercial vehicles in the country.

The CV industry has seen strong double-digit growth in 2015-16 and has kicked off 2016-17 on a strong note as well. Overall CV sales in the first two months of the ongoing fiscal were up 17.11 percent at 110,924 units, with M&HCVs continuing to clock over 20 percent growth.

Speaking to Autocar Professional in Mumbai recently, Mike Smith, global brand manager, Commercial Vehicle Lubricants at ExxonMobil, said, “The perspective on India is that we see the government emphasising on developing the infrastructure, which is leading to more types of commercial vehicles being used. The market is following a hub-and-spoke model, where larger vehicles link cities and the smaller ones providing the last mile connectivity. Each of these has different requirements and that really augurs well for the products that we have for the market.”

With a strong focus on expanding its off-highway and on-highway range of products, ExxonMobil has partnered with Tata Motors for the CV business and with Tata Hitachi for the construction equipment and machinery lubricants. The company has already launched co-branded products under these partnerships and will continue to grow its relationship with Indian OEMs in the future as well.

“We see the Indian market important to us globally along with other markets in Asia-Pacific. The business here has been on quite a journey, part of that has been working with some of the key OEMs. The collaboration has grown over the last two years, we have already launched co-branded products and our goal is to grow that relationship in the future, with more such initiatives,” adds Smith.

Some of these recently launched products include high-performance diesel engine oils like Mobil Delvac MX 15W-40 and Mobil Delvac Super 1400. According to the company, the Mobil Delvac MX 15W-40 is a diesel engine oil which meets or exceeds the specifications of virtually all major European and American engine manufacturers and has been proven in the field in a wide variety of industries, applications and mixed fleets.

Mobil Delvac Super 1400 is a high-performance range of diesel engine oils that provide protection to engines operating in severe conditions for both on- and off-highway applications and is recommended by ExxonMobil for use in a wide range of heavy-duty applications and operating environments suited for the trucking, mining and construction industries.

In 2015, ExxonMobil marked the 90th anniversary of Mobil Delvac, one of the world’s first brands of diesel engine lubricants. Since its introduction in 1925, Mobil Delvac lubricant technology has been synonymous with excellent protection for diesel-powered commercial vehicles and equipment used in numerous on- and off-highway applications.

In talks with OEMs

Now with India set to leapfrog to BS VI emission norms by 2020, ExxonMobil is in talks with OEMs to develop more products suited to the new generation of BS VI-compliant engines that will be introduced in the next few years.

“We are having conversations around lubricants that will support them and enable them to make choices that best suit their requirements. We have global products that already comply with Euro 6 emission norms, so we are really confident that as India adopts BS VI norms, we will have products to match requirements of our partner OEMs and for customers in India,” Smith elaborated.

For ExxonMobil, innovation, technological leadership and application expertise lie at the core of the company’s product portfolio of advanced lubricant solutions for businesses across all sectors and based upon these fundamentals it hopes to plot a new growth chart going forward.

Also read: ExxonMobil launches Mobil 1 5W-30 engine oil in India