ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Mack Trucks’ new president of North American sales and marketing said the company has set its sights on reaching 10% market share this year by growing its over-the-road truck business while retaining its traditional strength in vocational and regional haul.
“We feel very comfortable that this year we’re going to bust above 10%,” Stephen Roy told reporters here Feb. 21 at the Mack Customer Center.
The company’s share of the North American Class 8 market rose to 9.5% in the third quarter and 9.8% in the fourth quarter, said Roy, who stepped into to his role Jan. 1.
He succeeded Kevin Flaherty, who retired after 40 years at Mack.
Looking ahead five years, Roy said Mack will continue to leverage its strength in the vocational, regional and day-cab applications, but “now we’re turning our focus to the highway business.”
That effort will be supported by the company’s expanded service network, he said.
Mack’s network of independent dealers has invested $300 million in new and expanded service facilities since 2010, resulting in a 40% increase in bay capacity and 50% more technicians across 428 locations, Roy said.
The company also launched its GuardDog Connect remote diagnostics service to help customers proactively deal with fault codes and reduce downtime.
Mack plans to centralize its technical support staff at a new “uptime command center” in Greensboro, N.C., which is on track for completion in the fall.
Those improvements will help fleets maximize their asset utilization, he said. “Every truck has to be on the road. That’s really been our focus over the past five years on the aftermarket side.”
Roy said Mack is seeing about 40% adoption of its mDrive automated manual transmission for its day cab and highway segments, and predicted that the trend toward AMTs will continue, for Mack and the industry.
