On 22 September, over 120 professional journalists about commercial vehicles attended the formal signing cooperation agreement between King Long Bus and ARRIVA (European top transport service group), referring to 200 city buses valuing 20 million Euros. This is the biggest order of city buses for the bidding of China bus builders in Europe. The order is related to XMQ6900J and MQ6127J and all buses will be applied in Malta. Guo Renxiang, the GM of King Long Bus pointed out that the cooperation with ARRIVA was of the greatest importance for ten years’ global marketing. That showed that King Long Bus has the capability for first class bus operators in the world for buses and service.
Ms. Han Zhihong, Manager of Strategy Customer Department of King Long Bus signs agreement with Mr. Keith Bastow, the director of Development Dept. of ARRIVA Group
Ms. Han Zhihong showed that till now, King Long Bus has sold 800 buses in 12 countries in European Union with 5 years" effort and took leading among China bus builders for opening EU market. In the forthcoming one year, it would offer ARRIVA 2000 low-floor and environmental city buses for public transport in Malta.
Press Release of King Long Bus
It is known that ARRIVA is one of the world-known public transport operators in EU with business of 13 countries such as U.K., Czech, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany and Italy and possesses 15000 vehicles and 600 trains. Its operation income reaches 3 billion Euros in 2009.
Mr. NeKeith Bastow said that ARRIVA has started to focus on the performance of China buses in EU market 5 years before and made a lot of research. We found that the King Long products developed fast with good brand image in recent several years. Many customers showed high appraisals for King Long products. That is one of important reasons for our decision.
He said that, "It is not only a good opportunity for us and King Long Bus to show in Malta market, but also a wonderful one for King Long Bus to display in ARRIVA group. It is believed that we felt satisfactory with King Long products and service. It is revealed that some subsidiaries of ARRIVA have pay attention to King Long Bus."
As the leading China bus builder, King Long Bus has started to sell products in overseas market since 2000 and launched EU counties markets in 2005 and made great sales achievements in recent years. It exported 131 buses with amount of 16 million USD in 2009 and almost 100 buses to EU market with amount of more than 11 million USD, year-on-year growth of 100% in Jan.-Jun. 2010. As of now, the market maintenance of King Long buses has exceeded 800 units.
On 23 September 2010, the annual commercial vehicles expo (IAA 2010) was held, covering the area of 900 thousand square meters and involved more than 1400 bus, truck, special vehicles and auto parts producers in the world. King Long Bus took three new models (XMQ6800,XMQ6130Y and XMQ6127J) for that, which all passed through WVTA certification, ready for the sales in the European market.
XMQ6800,XMQ6130Y and XMQ6127J
In the past years, there are only two models for King Long Bus for EU market (XMQ6900 and XMQ6127). In order to better meet customers" requirements, the company will launch 5 models in this market: XMQ6800, XMQ6120C, XMQ6130Y, XMQ6900J and XMQ6127J, referring to city bus, tourist coach and group vehicles.
Guo Renxiang showed that it was the source region for automobile industry in Europe and raised world top auto companies. Since 2005, King Long Bus started to open European market and participated into the world bus expo in successive 5 years. On the one hand, it turns to European advanced bus builders for technology and manufacturing experience to continuously enhance technology level, manufacturing craftworks and quality of products; on the other hand, it expectes more customers as well as market shares. Therefore, King Long Bus was confident of law-abidance and models with high cost performance.