Equipment dealer in India to sell Deere goods

Deere's expansion into the Indian market includes heavy machinery.
Deere's expansion into the Indian market includes heavy machinery.
A popular heavy equipment dealer in India soon will begin selling John Deere equipment, a published report states.

As a byproduct of the Moline, Illinois-based company's $100 million investment in the subcontinent, Ashkok Leyland will enter the construction industry during the fiscal year's second quarter and it will sell the Leyland Deere. That vehicle is a merging of the two companies.

Prior to selling that machine, the company will first sell backhoe loaders with hopes that additional devices will follow in what Deere believes to be a fertile market.

"We will follow up the launch of the backhoe loaders with excavators after about a year," said Vinod K. Dasari, managing director of Ashok Leyland.

Ashkok Leyland conducted a soft launch a few weeks ago that indicates its plan to sell Light Commercial Vehicles.

Another market the company plans to penetrate is machinery to develop infrastructure, which analysts state the government is encouraging.

"We did 94,000 vehicles last year and this year we will be crossing the one-lakh-mark [100,000]. This is excluding the 20,000 LCVs we plan to do," the managing director said. "In the last six months alone, we have launched 600 new models of our existing products."