On June 25th, BAIC FOTON held a grand new product launch ceremony in Johannesburg, South Africa, focusing on its core strategic models and officially launching the Truck Mate to the African market, as well as showcasing a number of star product lineups that have already achieved success in the South African market, including the MILER, VIEW, TUNLAND G7, and the eVIEW. The event attracted a high degree of attention from many local dealers, core customers and mainstream media in South Africa, demonstrating BAIC FOTON’s firm commitment to ploughing into the South African market and continuing to satisfy users’ needs.
As a pivotal automotive market in the African continent, South Africa has a growing demand for cost-effective and highly reliable commercial vehicles. Since entering South Africa, BAIC FOTON has always adhered to the concept of long-term investment and steadily pushed forward the layout of its entire product line. With the excellent product performance and deeply localized service system, the brand influence and customer trust have been increasing. The Truck Mate, the core product released this time, is a strategic model crafted by BAIC FOTON to meet the multi-scenario transportation needs of South African customers, marking the in-depth promotion of its localized operation and industrialization strategy.
Continuing to deepen , Commitment to the future
At the event, Jiang Yanlei, Vice President of BAIC FOTON overseas, delivered a speech titled《BAlC FOTON Africa & South Africa Strategy》. He reaffirmed the company’s strong, long-term commitment to both South Africa and the wider African market.Jiang highlighted that the KD production model currently in use at the South African plant is a key step in advancing BAlC FOTON’s localization strategy. He emphasized that going forward, BAlC FOTON will continue to ramp up investment, focusing on several core areas: expanding its product lineup, increasing local manufacturing capacity, enhancing its sales and service network, and boosting R&D efforts.These initiatives are aimed at significantly strengthening the value and competitiveness of FOTON products in the South African market. By further refining its product portfolio and improving after-sales support, BAlC FOTON is committed to delivering commercial vehicle solutions that better meet local needs and offer greater value to South African customers.
The Truck Mate Launched
As the protagonist of this conference, the Truck Mate mini truck makes a brilliant debut and becomes a key product to meet the needs of South African users for efficient and flexible transportation. This model is equipped with a high-efficiency Dong’an 1.5-liter engine, which is powerful and reliable; its body size is carefully designed to be wider and longer than similar products, and it provides a large box capacity of up to 7 cubic meters, which is fully adapted to the transportation challenges of South African users in multiple scenarios such as urban distribution and trade circulation.
Truck Mate perfectly inherits the high-quality genes of FOTON’s star products, leading the industry in terms of driving smoothness, ride comfort and overall reliability, providing local customers with a very competitive and cost-effective choice.
At the conference , BAIC FOTON simultaneously displayed its powerful product matrix. The highly acclaimed MILER series trucks, with their excellent reliability, high efficiency and strong carrying capacity, continue to serve South Africa’s transportation, construction, agriculture and other key fields. The eVIEW, as an important part of the green logistics solution, and the new Truck Mate mini truck provide efficient options for urban distribution. The collective appearance of these star models fully demonstrates the comprehensive strength of FOTON’s products and its profound accumulation in the local market.
BAIC FOTON has always adhered to the concept of “Growing with Africa”, and regards South Africa as the core pivot point of its globalization strategy. Since the release of its Africa strategy in 2024 and the launch of the “Lighthouse Plan”, BAIC FOTON has created more thousands of employment in South Africa and driven the development of upstream and downstream industry clusters by deepening the integration of its manufacturing, service, financial and new energy industry chains, and by actively promoting the transfer of technology and the cultivation of localized talents.
The grand launch of the Truck Mate mini truck not only enriches BAIC FOTON’s product lineup in the South African market, but also confirms its determination to take root in South Africa and serve Africa for a long time. With the in-depth promotion of localized production and the continuous improvement of product capability, BAIC FOTON is steadily becoming an important force in promoting the development of the commercial vehicle market in South Africa and even Africa.
