New Kenworth general manager talks company growth

New Kenworth general manager talks company growth, projections for the truck market

In April, Kenworth Truck Co. announced Mike Dozier as the new general manager of Kenworth and vice president of PACCAR. Prior to taking this job, Dozier served for the past three years as managing director of PACCAR Australia and was Kenworth’s chief engineer from 2004 to 2008. He has been with PACCAR since 1988. Fleet Equipment had a chance to talk with Dozier on Kenworth’s growth and the company’s predictions for the market in 2016 and beyond.

According to the company, Kenworth’s current market share comes in at approximately 15% of the market for Class 8 trucks, and 9% for medium-duty sales—representing continued growth from previous years.

“When you make the right products and support the customers with services from those products, the market share is a natural fallout from that,” Dozier said.

As of now, T680 models account for 58% of Kenworth sales, while T880 models come in at 28%.

PACCAR’s MX engine line also continues to grow; the company is projecting 45% of Kenworth trucks to be spec’ed with MX engines this year, and nearly 140,000 MX engines have been sold in total.

“Just as with the T680 and T880, the feedback we’re getting from customers on fuel economy and from the standpoint of drivers—that it creates a very comfortable driving environment and that the engines operate very quietly—means the future continues to be very bright for these engines,” Dozier said.

Related: A video look at Kenworth’s trucks with the new MX-11 engine.

As for numbers for the industry as a whole, Kenworth is projecting truck sales of between 220,000 and 240,000, below early-year projections but still a healthy number for the industry. Looking forward, the company sees similar numbers to come next year.

“We don’t see radical changes coming; we see 2017 being a continuation of 2016 [sales-wise] as we get a normalization of the high number of new trucks sold that came in 2015,” Dozier said. “As far as Kenworth’s market size goes, we see that also holding with 2016.”

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