SANY recently held the firm’s first ever ‘Dig Day’ at Sibbald Training’s HQ in West Lothian, providing an informal opportunity for plant sector stakeholders to meet the team and have a go on the manufacturer’s range of excavators.
A total of nine machines were available to try out, including the 7.5-tonne SY75C, which was launched at ScotPlant last year.
Brian McGrane, senior sales manager at SANY UK, told Project Plant during a busy morning of visitors that the aim of the event was to give people a better understanding of the products and their capabilities.
He added, “Events like this allow people to come and get a proper shot of the machines. Mostly they only get to see them at shows in static displays. When they come here, they can dig and get to feel how the machine feels when they’re operating.”
The full line-up on the day comprised an SY18C, SY26U, SY35U, SY50U, SY75C, SY80U, 135C, 215C, and a 305C. The target audience was a mixture of operators, owner-operators, company owners, and even engineers looking to learn more about the service accessibility on the machines.
Brian described the Scottish market segment as currently ‘very strong’ for SANY. In 2022, excavator sales more than doubled for the manufacturer and the business is well on course to significantly improve on that this year.
Brian hailed the response from operators to the Chinese-built equipment, with many first becoming familiar with the SANY brand following the pandemic when there was a shortage of available machines from some competitor companies.
“There was a bit of a struggle to get machines (from other brands) and people took a punt and had a try on the SANY,” he said. “They’ve come back and bought more because they’ve realised it’s actually a strong, robust product for the market and does the job.
“We were really busy in the first half of the year. It always tends to quiet down in the summer. It’s been good. I think (the market’s) still buoyant enough; we’re still getting lots of enquiries and selling lots of machines. And that’s throughout the range – it’s not all small machines. We’re getting big machines out as well.
“Our most popular machine is probably the 2.6/2.7-tonne SY26U, just for towing capabilities. The 8-tonne SY80U is also quite popular this year for plant hire companies, and we’ve sold a few 30s and 40s into the demolition sector.”
The Dig Day event marked a welcome return for SANY to Sibbald Training’s base in Blackridge. The site provided a temporary home for SANY two years ago while the business was waiting to move into its UK HQ in Coatbridge. Since then, the brand has gone from strength to strength – with no plans to slow down.
“Our goal is to be market leader in Scotland and the UK,” Brian added. “That’s the ultimate goal; that’s where we want to be. We want to sell lots of machines into the market and, as you’ll probably see from driving about, you see more SANY machines on sites now.”
