Dr. Wolfgang Bernhard announced during a press conference in Stuttgart, Germany that Daimler is currently positioning India as its major export base for markets in Southeast Asia and Africa.

According to The Economic Times India, the decision of Daimler to go for India as its export base was due to the strong sales growth they witnessed in the country as well as the company’s good momentum in the region.

Since the parent company of Mercedes-Benz began its operations in Chennai, India plant as the manufacturer of the FUSO brand, solid demand has been seen by Daimler in selected export markets of Southeast Asia and Africa. Thus, Bernhard confirmed that it will continue doing that this year.

Based on the figures released by the report, Daimler was able to sell 484,000 units of trucks last year. Crunching the numbers, 13.6 percent came from Europe, 27 percent sales originated from the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA), 34 percent was from Asia and 9.5 was made in Latin America.

Daimler forecasts a growth in the demand of trucks worldwide by 2.5 million in 2012 up to more than 3 million in 2020. The company foresees that emerging markets such as India will be among the key drivers of growth.

The report also pointed out that Daimler is the fourth-largest truck maker in India and is fast becoming as a major contender to Ashok Leyland and Tata.

With the move of Daimler’s export base to India, its executives are looking to save up to 1.6 billion Euros by 2015.

Daimler is targeting sales of more than 500,000 units of trucks in 2015 and 700,000 by 2020. The average return on sales is projected at 8 percent.