Do you know the Ursus brand? Is the Polish origin of the tractor important to you? And finally, would you buy a new Ursus? We asked these questions to respondents using the Ariadna panel. The results are not a big surprise – the Ursus brand is still recognizable, liked and taken into account when purchasing. It is probably worth saving it and trying to bring it back to the market, because its value is still huge.
The deadline for submitting offers for the purchase of the Ursus brand, along with the company’s assets, passed in mid-March. It is worth noting that the assets of Ursus, even now, are not just any, because in the set with the brand logo you can buy three plants, including one operating and selling machines, and the buyer can also become the owner of the documentation and certain know-how in child’s life. only tractors.
Thanks to cooperation with the National Research Panel Ariadna, we were able to check how strong the Ursus brand is on the Polish market. Everyone seems to know it, but now we have evidence of it.
The study was conducted on the Ariadna National Research Panel on a nationwide sample of 1,153 people. The survey was conducted on April 5-7, 2024.
Ursus is the most famous tractor brand in Poland
The first question concerned companies producing tractors. Respondents received ready-made answers with several tractor brands, both currently operating on the market and several historical, but still remembered, such as Renault Agriculture or Vladimirets. The results are not a surprise, especially since not all respondents are related to agriculture and for some, brands such as Solis, Kioti or Pronar mean little.
As much as 72 percent respondents know the Ursus brand at least by word of mouth, which is a really good result. Especially if we look at the next items, where the recognition, even of companies such as John Deere or Fendt, is much lower.
Zetor took second place, also with a quite good result of 55%. recognition. The next brands were John Deere (34%), Massey Ferguson (29%) and New Holland (29%).
Between 11 and 18 percent obtained by companies such as Claas, Władimiriec, Ford, Kubota, JCB, Steyr, MTZ Belarus. Kubota’s result can certainly be higher due to the mini excavators that are fashionable in Poland or even the famous “bazaar flip-flops”. The same may be true of Ford, which is also associated with cars, or JCB, which many people associate with construction equipment. The poor result of MTZ or Vladimirets may be due to the fact that people know these machines by sight, but not necessarily by name.
Deutz-Fahr, Fendt, Case IH, Renault, Valtra and Pronar scored 10 percentage points or less. Asian brands that are relatively new on the Polish market, such as Lovol/Arbos, Solis and Kioti, achieved a result of 1-2%. We decided to also add the Mahindra brand in the available answers, which does not officially exist on the Polish market, but is the largest tractor manufacturer in the world. It turns out that popularity in the world does not mean recognition on the Polish market, and as a result, Mahindra gained only 1 percent. As much as 16 percent respondents did not know any brand.
Breaking down the results into more detailed data, it turned out that, of course, men’s knowledge of individual tractor brands was at a higher level, but interestingly, in the case of the Ursus brand it was as much as 72%. women chose the Polish brand and this result is higher than among men (by 1%).
A certain signal about the passing of brands such as Ursus or Zetor can be seen in the age range of the respondents. The Polish brand was recognized by respondents older than 55 at the level of 82%, and the Czech classic – 68%. If we look at other age groups, the popularity of these brands decreases with each age group, reaching only 49% in the 18-24 age group. (Ursus) and 35 percent (Zetor). This mechanism also works the other way around. Among older people, the recognition of today’s leading brands John Deere and New Holland is 30 and 25 percent, respectively, while among people in their prime (25-44 years), who most often now farm large areas in the country, the recognition of market leaders is approximately 40 percent . and approx. 35 percent (and is the biggest).
We will not relate the results of this study to the wealth of families, the number of household members or place of residence, because it is not important from our point of view, but one parameter is interesting. Well, the Solis brand has rather little recognition throughout the country, in the province. Podkarpackie gained 9%, and the Pronar brand in the province. Podlaskie had a recognition rate of 37%, which is not surprising and in this area only Ursus, Zetor, John Deere and New Holland are more popular.
The result is definitely above the average (10 percent overall in the country) in the province. Masurian-Warmia Province was obtained by the Fendt brand, which in this case has 25 percent. recognition. This probably makes the dealers of this brand in these areas happy – a great job.
Interestingly, the John Deere and New Holland brands in the province Silesia had similar recognition results to Massey Ferguson and Ford (levels from 18 to 21%). Massey Ferguson probably attributes its recognition (29%) in the top five to Ursus and the license from the 1970s.
Ursus produces something, or I don’t know
The next question concerned production in Ursus. Recent press reports may have misled the public opinion. In people’s minds, Ursus had not existed for some time, and suddenly the trustee sells the company’s assets, mainstream media reports show photos of tractors, and there are reports on TVP 3 about tractor production in Brazil. You can get lost.
As a result, as many as 24 percent respondents answered that Ursus still produces tractors, while 31 were sure that the Polish brand no longer produces tractors. However, most of them were not sure – as many as 45% answered yes. respondents. There is one conclusion from this – as many as 69 percent. people believe that the production of Ursus tractors is still ongoing or they are not sure about it. Therefore, in the minds of the respondents, the brand is a living brand that can still operate on the tractor market. This is optimistic news for potential investors.
When we get into the details of the answer, we may be a little surprised. It turns out that people over 55 are more aware of the situation in Ursus and only 18 percent respondents of this age said that production in Ursus is in full swing, on the other hand, as many as 34-35 percent had the same opinion. respondents aged 18-34. As you can see, every third young person believes that Ursus still offers tractors.
However, the majority of responses were “difficult to say” and in each age group the result was from 40 to 50 percent. Of course, among the most aware of the situation in Ursus were the inhabitants of the Masovian and Lublin voivodeships, where Ursus factories were located.
Would you buy a new Ursus?
The next question is very important for our study, because it was: “If, as a farmer, you had the choice of purchasing a new Ursus tractor with good parameters and built on renowned components, would you consider purchasing it?”
The answers here are more than optimistic from the point of view of a fan of the Ursus brand or a potential investor. Well, as many as 63 percent. respondents answered “yes”, and only 7 percent “NO”. The answer “difficult to say” was marked by 30 percent. respondents.
As you can see, the opportunities of the Ursus brand on the Polish market are still enormous. Of course, it’s a long way from checking the answer in the survey to actually making a purchase in the real world, but the brand’s potential can be seen with the naked eye.
The results of this question matched the overall results in detail, so we will not go deep into the analysis. It may be worth noting that the largest number of “yes” responses were in the Łódź Voivodeship (73%), the fewest in the Podlaskie Voivodeship (47%), while the most “no” responses were recorded in the Lubuskie Voivodeship (0%), and the highest in the Opole Voivodeship (14%). .). The most undecided people were in the voivodeship. Podlaskie (as much as 41%).
Does the Polish tractor brand matter to you?
“Or maybe you don’t care about the origin of the brand or the place of production?” This is another question we asked the respondents. The results are optimistic for the Polish machinery industry, because Polish origin is important for as much as 50 percent. responding. For 29 percent Machine parameters, price and other similar factors were definitely more important than the place of production, which is not surprising. Interestingly, as many as 21 percent respondents indicated that they were basically indifferent to the origin of the machine.
Which Polish brand would you choose?
The next question was: “If all brands of Polish tractors from the past were currently offered, which offer would you check first if you were a farmer?”
Seemingly, the question repeated the same issues as the previous questions, but in this case we focused on which of the existing Polish brands has the greatest potential and are the respondents interested in Polish brands at all?
It turned out that, of course, Ursus is superior to all well-known brands from Poland. Ursus was chosen by as many as 61 percent. respondents. The rest of the brands received negligible support and what seems more important is that 25 percent respondents answered that they were indifferent to it, but the most important answer in this question was “I would not consider a Polish tractor”, which was marked by only 4 percent. respondents. So for 25 percent Respondents do not care what brand the tractor is, but it is important that it is Polish. This is also encouraging.
The greatest number of answers “I wouldn’t consider a Polish tractor” were selected in the Opole, Podkarpackie, Podlaskie, West Pomeranian and Warmian-Masurian voivodeships (from 9 to 12%). The voivodeships most oriented towards Polish machines are the Lubusz and Świętokrzyskie voivodeships (0%).
What’s the moral of this?
Every public opinion poll is incomplete and far-reaching conclusions cannot always be drawn from it. The fact that the knowledge of the Ursus brand and the willingness to buy Polish machines in the nation is high does not mean that this would be the case in the real world. Even we are sure that John Deere and New Holland would still be the market leaders, and the Fendt remained a dream for many farmers. Moreover, the sales results of the Zetor brand show that brand recognition is one thing, and sales in the real world are another.
On the other hand, the potential of the Ursus brand is enormous and if someone started offering good equipment under this name and promoted it in a very good way, the starting point for success would be at a high level. The study also shows how much trust Poles have in private labels.
Therefore, we hope that there is still a chance for the Ursus brand and we are counting on the trustee’s next announcement regarding the sale of the company’s assets.
