M&M digs into the earthmover market

In an interesting marketing presentation, M&M says 141 million litres of diesel can be saved every year if every backhoe loader in the country is an EarthMaster. With some competitive figures to boast, M&M has priced the EarthMaster at Rs 20.98 lakh, at par with its competitor from JCB. M&M pitches its product as a better value for money option as the EarthMaster offers features like joystick controls (instead of multiple levers), multi-lingual information display and verbal messages, and SMS alerts about the machine’s usage.

What will matter most in the market will be the durability of the product and the aftersales support. M&M says its EarthMaster is highly durable as the product has undergone testing for over 20,000 hours, which translates into eight years of actual customer usage. To make a mark in the market, the EarthMaster comes with a two-year, unlimited hours warranty. M&M will need all it can offer, and more, as it will meet a extremely strong competitor in JCB, which has become a generic name in the backhoe loader market. That’s why it will use all available resources within the group, including Mahindra Finance, to support the new business. What gives a new player like Mahindra advantage over some established players is its ‘ecosystem’.

The 2,000-member strong R&D team across M&M’s Automotive & Farm Equipment Sectors, a network of 1,650 dealers in the company and a $4 billion sourcing base will aid Mahindra Construction Equipment take on competition. What M&M also wants to leverage is the existing customer base in the construction equipment industry. It says 40 percent of existing construction equipment owners also own at least one Mahindra product.

M&M has developed the EarthMaster keeping in mind the export markets. The Ditec engine is BS III compliant and also meets the USA Tier III emission norms. Exports are likely to start in a year or two.