Isuzu UK is aiming to hit 10,000 annual sales of its D-Max pick-up truck by 2025, according to the company’s managing director William Brown.
This would represent a doubling of the 5,000 sales the importer expects to register in the UK this year and a leap of more than 60% on the total of 6,000 it reached in 2015, three years after the D-Max’s launch.
Brown says Isuzu UK will achieve the increase through building up fleet sales from 20% to 30% of the total volume, making a bigger impact in the lifestyle sector of the market and through driving more sales through its dealer network.
Brown explains the brand does not intend to move the network away from its traditional rural heartlands where he claims much business is carried out in local communities rather than through the showrooms, but will grow individual dealerships’ sales. At the moment he says volume ranges from sites selling under 20 units a year to the top seller on 200 units. The target is for average annual sales per site to be around 100.
The brand has recruited nine dealerships so far this year, which equates to net growth of two in a total of 103 outlets, and aims to expand to a 110-strong network by the year end.
The new XTR is spearheading the assault on the lifestyle sector. Positioned between the niche D-Max Arctic Trucks AT35 and the erstwhile flagship, the Blade, Brown claims the XTR, although restricted to low production numbers itself, “we’re talking hundreds of units only,” will act as a halo model in attracting lifestyle customers to the Blade and the Utah. Prices for the XTR start from £33,999, excluding VAT.
Isuzu UK is now marketing its D-Max line-up in three groups: the entry-level Utility in single-, extended- and double-cab formats comes in the Business category and is aimed at fleets, such as utility companies, the All Purpose middle group is targeted at farmers and SMEs and contains the Eiger, Yukon and Utah and the Adventurer group consists of the Blade, XTR and AT35 and aims to attract more lifestyle customers to the brand.
