Challenger seeks to constantly expand the boundaries of technology available in achieving a higher capacity for work, but at the same time, and greater economy of machinery that produces, Charles Smith, Managing Director Challenger EAME said. Smith and his colleagues from AGCO Company Andy Sturrock and Ken Spicer were at a working meeting in Bulgaria with Varex company – Challenger’s official importer for Bulgaria.
Varex has beеn working with Challenger for 21 months and despite the short time we have built a solid foundation for our future cooperation and created a very good impression among the community of farmers in Bulgaria, Smith said. He was positive that despite the short-term problems in the industry at the moment, Challenger looks great with the optimism of working with Varex. After a brief analysis of sales in Bulgaria for 2008 and 2009, we are proud to announce that in the segment of tractors over 300 hp we have achieved a market share of 11.5%. As for the sale of tracked tractors, the country’s market share of Challenger is 80%.
Challenger is a brand of professional, large-scale farmers. It is designed for larger and more efficient production that is necessary in the world, Charles Smith said. This does not mean just doing more and more large machines, but investing know-how in making these machines more intelligent to operate more rationally. And if these technologies lead to real results, we will continue to develop them. Another important aspect on which we rely in the manufacture of machinery is the human factor – the operators who run the machine – technology must be available to them, the specialist said.
Servicing of new Challenger machinery, which Varex has introduced in our country this year, requires a certain period of time associated with the accumulation of practical knowledge and experience. In this regard, Smith commented that Varex is at the highest level of service for maintenance.
At a question Can it be expected soon on the Bulgarian market to enter and wheeled tractors of Challenger, Smith commented: What we have to consider is that AGCO (Challenger) is that we could truly bring something new to Bulgarian market by entering wheeled tractors. AGCO has a number of brands present in Bulgaria. The last thing that we want to do is to exchange the sales from one brand to another. What we want to do is to be sure that we bring something new and innovative to the marketplace. That question is something that we will be carefully considered in the next few months.
Regarding the positioning of Challenger track tractors on the Bulgarian market compared to other brands that offer track tractors Charles Smith said the market currently lacks bad tractors, but some tractors are better than others … One of the advantages of Challenger, and AGCO generally is they focus exclusively on agricultural equipment, while some of its main competitors on a global scale, deal with industrial equipment. So AGCO Company is very concentrated in terms of developments related to the agriculture machinery. As to the Challenger, this brand is very close to the needs of farmers.
Another important advantage of AGCO and Challenger as a brand is a very close link between production units, on the one hand, and distributors on the other. This allows information from the market capacity to be constant and current and production to be tailored to demand.
