Avto-Region, the exclusive distributor of Turkish buses Temsa in Ukraine, plans to sell about 100 buses of this brand in 2024, which will increase its market share to 10% compared to 2% in 2023, when 20 buses were sold, said Nikita Gaidamakha, head of the bus production direction.
“Last year our share was 2%, but it was the beginning of joint production of buses in Ukraine with Temsa, and this year we plan to sell at least 100 buses primarily due to participation in the state program ‘School Bus’,” he told a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Wednesday.
Gaidamakha specified that by now the company has managed to reach the level of localization of almost 20%, and now it is working on increasing this share this year up to 25%, taking into account the requirements of the law on localization.
According to him, two models are now localized in Ukraine: the Prestij SX intercity bus with 30 seats and a school bus based on this model.
“Today the first serial batches of these models are at the final stage of production and will be available for ordering from April,” Gaidamakha specified.
He added that large contacts with Ukrainian manufacturers of components have already been signed for the implementation of the production program.
As specified the head of the company’s sales department Alexander Butenko, among the Ukrainian components in the bus are seats, double-glazed windows, autonomous heating systems, elements of interior arrangement.
“Now there are negotiations with a Ukrainian company to install the Smart Bus system, which is also a warning system that can find the nearest shelters, and even allows parents to see the children in the bus,” Butenko specified.
Gaidamakha in turn emphasized that the company is currently developing a large investment project and plans to protect it in order to start production in Ukraine of all buses of the model line Temsa .
“In particular, yesterday we received the first updated model of tourist bus for 55 seats, we attract engineers to study the product, and we will look for ways to localize it here,” he said.
In addition, the possibility of creating a school bus with an electric motor is under consideration, the project of which is planned to be realized in the near future.
According to him, the Temsa school bus is significantly more expensive than the models of domestic manufacturers, its cost is 4950 thousand UAH.
“But we do not set the task to compete on price. The main goal that we have set with our partners is not so much the development of production as the transfer of experience and standards operating in the world to Ukraine. We want to show by our example that such transportation is more expedient and change the existing market in Ukraine,” Gaidamakha emphasized.
He expressed the opinion that Ukraine, when forming the state transport strategy, should understand how much cheaper and certain savings in purchases will turn into overpayment in the future, when it will be necessary to replace the equipment that meets European standards.
Gaidamaha pointed out that today in Ukraine many tenders for the supply of electric buses for the funds of European financial institutions remain without bids and are postponed because manufacturers cannot fulfill the conditions of the customer.
In addition, in his opinion, the bottleneck in the law on localization is the inability to cover the existing demand in Ukraine for the supply of tourist buses for government agencies.
“Given the closed skies in Ukraine, we often receive requests from government agencies for tourist buses with 55 seats for transportation of employees abroad, but such transport is not mass produced in Ukraine, and such production requires large investments, experience and technological base. It is difficult to localize it, and as a result we are forced to refuse such clients,” Gaidamakha said.
The head of the company’s sales department Christina Bratchikova, in turn, noted that in January, Temsa buses have already taken 11% of the market (according to Ukravtoprom) with the registration of 13 buses.
“The share of Temsa speaks of consumer confidence and that business is looking towards transportation with Euro 6 ecostandards.” Today the bus market is concentrated around school buses, but in general the demand for buses is greater than the supply and we have requests for large tourist buses and even electric vehicles. Therefore, we believe that this year there will be an increase in the market,” she said.
In turn, Temsa’s vice president for sales and marketing Hakan Koralp noted that the company sees great prospects in the Ukrainian market and pays great attention to it.
“We started negotiations with Auto-Region in 2021 and signed a representation agreement in 2023. We are actively studying the requirements of the localization law, and we are pleased that Auto-Region has received Temsa’s permission to perform work on the completion of unfinished vehicles, such as Prestij SX, in Ukraine, and we are confident that this is just the beginning,” he said.
Hakan Koralp noted that today Temsa has a wide model range from 7-meter to 14-meter city and tourist buses, has a significant share in the U.S. bus market and more than 10 thousand buses operating in the European market.
Vitaliy Pasichny, deputy director of the company, reminded that Auto-Region officially represents in Ukraine, in addition to Temsa bus equipment, the Korean brand of trucks and special vehicles Daewoo Trucks and Indian car manufacturer TATA.
“This year we plan to expand the model range of these brands, and if in 2023 in Ukraine was delivered 65 cargo pickup trucks Tata Xenon, in the current year plans about 350. In addition, we plan to sell about 300 Daewoo Trucks, and more if there are orders. We have already imported a medium-duty Daewoo with GVW of 10 tons, and by the end of the year something will appear in TATA as well,” he said.
Pasichny noted that cooperation with Daewoo began in 2020. Utility, commercial, and firefighting vehicles were supplied. By now, according to him, more than 200 projects have been realized, and more than 2.5 thousand cars of this brand are already running in Ukraine.
He named the price/quality ratio and the most affordable price for pickup trucks on the Ukrainian market as the main advantages of TATA pickup trucks. At the same time, Pasichny specified that there are no plans to produce pickup trucks in Ukraine.
Viktor Kovbyk, head of the technical department of Auto-Region, said in turn that the company has a service network in Ukraine and plans to sign up to 20 service contracts.
“We could do more, but the obstacle is martial law and a number of other factors,” he said.
At the same time, Kovbyk noted that the partners with the onset of full-scale war did not stop cooperation. “And already in April 2022 resumed our orders, began to implement projects even without prepayment, which speaks of confidence in us,” he emphasized.
According to him, the company’s warehouse of spare parts for three brands with an area of more than 1 thousand square meters allows to provide three months of uninterrupted work without additional supply.
In addition, the company has three mobile brigades to work in remote areas, and repairs equipment for the Ukrainian military at service stations free of charge.
Speaking about the company’s problem in connection with mobilization, Pasichny noted that Auto-Region is currently submitting documents for inclusion in the list of critical infrastructure enterprises for the possibility of reservation, as the company services vehicles for utility workers and the military and has contracts with the military.
At the same time, he added that last year Avto-Region managed to increase the number of employees by 30%, primarily by attracting young specialists.
Answering a question from Interfax-Ukraine, Pasichny noted that in 2022-2023, 90% of the company’s sales were state purchases, as business is not yet ready to invest money and “mostly buys cheap or used”.
It was noted that long-term forecasts of the car market in Ukraine in the company does not take to build because of the war.
“There is a pent-up demand for cars, and the forecast is still complicated because of the war, but after the victory we predict a significant breakthrough and hope that Ukraine will repeat the results of the car market in 2006-2007,” – summarized Kovbyk.
Auto-Region LLC with authorized capital of 230 thousand UAH was registered in 2004 in Kiev. It specializes in the supply of special vehicles, trucks, buses for urban, intercity and tourist transportation. It has 10 official service centers in Ukraine.
The owner of 100% of the company is Dmytro Gaidamakha, who is currently serving in the AFU.
According to the data of the Сlarity system, in January-September 2023 the company increased its net profit 11.6 times to the same period of 2022 – up to UAH 75.3 mln, while net income grew 3.2 times to UAH 1 bln 234 mln.
In 2022, the company’s net income grew 3.8 times by 2021 to UAH 656.2m, with net profit of UAH 41.3m compared to UAH 0.88m.
