In this newest “5 Questions with…” series installment, Rural Lifestyle Dealer editors spoke with Tim Phillips, vice president, sales operations for Kioti, a role to which he was promoted in early April. During the discussion, Phillips shared his insight into Kioti’s dealer network growth plans, product line innovations and the company’s 2025 outlook.

What should rural lifestyle dealers know about Kioti — in terms of what sets it apart and what’s new?

Tim Phillips: Right now, one of the things that really separates Kioti from a lot of the other companies is our vertical integration and the fact that we manufacture all of the products that we sell — anything from the zero-turn mower up to our compact construction equipment, our tractors, our utility vehicles.

That gives us a lot of opportunity to impact the design to fit North American needs specifically and, of course, even in the domestic market. We have the ability to control that from a quality standpoint — how we want to see the product finished and developed. It's been positive for us to be able to control all of those aspects from both the development side and the manufacturing side.

Over the last couple of years we've experienced a lot of growth — both in our dealer network and our product lineup. We continue to innovate and develop the line in terms of the offerings that we have, the size of products, the horsepower ranges, the types of equipment that we're offering. That's really been a lot of our growth over the last couple of years. Specifically this year, we’re getting ready to officially launch an industry-leading product with our CS2530 subcompact cab model, fully integrated with HVAC system, heat and air conditioning. That's a first of its kind product and a subcompact class.. We're also expanding our high-horsepower product offering this year with the introduction of our 130 and 140 horsepower tractors, which is really an expansion of our HX series lineup.

With artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly becoming a part of dealer businesses, and customers’ growing interest in technology, can you address the degree to which dealers and customers are incorporating Kioti Connect?

Phillips: Kioti Connect is fairly new for us as we introduced that last fall. Some of the products manufactured in the second half of 2024 are equipped with Kioti Connect, and anything that's being manufactured in 2025 forward will have that offering. It's a part of what everyone is doing these days in terms of being connected anywhere, anytime kind of thing. We all walk around with a cell phone in our hand and need to have that constant connection. It's certainly in the early stages of our development and we're excited about the possibilities of it moving forward. Currently, the customers are excited about it. They're used to that type of technology and maybe some of their automotive applications, so they have some experience with that already.

As we continue to get dealers and customers both to understand what those capabilities are currently and in the future, we're going to continue to see a fast adoption of the system. Specifically for our commercial customers in the compact construction and commercial turf and lawn care companies, and even some who are using our tractors at a commercial application, they'll find a lot of usefulness in it, with tracking location, which is always kind of a big one for them. Maintenance tracking, any kind of diagnostic troubleshooting capabilities — some of those are in the early stages, but have just limitless possibilities moving forward. Even for our hobby farmers and landowners, there’s interest in just having some of that information available at their fingertips — whether it's access to an owner's manual or access to maybe even a service manual — the ability to go online and directly order parts, for example, for maintenance services. There's all kinds of things that we're really looking forward to in future developments as well.

We're also getting good feedback from customers already about things they would like to see in future developments.That's where some of those concepts with maybe service manuals and owner's manuals and different things like that, they were like, "Well, it would be nice to do that. I can never find my owner's manual when I need it, but if it's right there on the app, then that's perfect." So there is a lot of good stuff there.

What are Kioti's expectations for business in 2025?

Phillips: We’re optimistic about 2025. I think most thought the industry was going to be down a little bit in 2025. It was down fairly significantly in 2024. Overall the market was probably down about 13-14% or near that. Most industry analysts expected the market will probably be down a little bit more this year as some predicted flat, some were saying 3-5% down. We're kind of seeing the market trend pretty similar to last year so far. So the market's trending down about 10 or 11% which I think that's surprising some, but for us, we're still full speed ahead.

We're still very aggressive with our programming, with our channel development, with our dealers and we're still looking to grow our business in a down market. We were fortunate to be able to do that last year in a down market, and so we plan and intend to do the same in 2025. I think that trend is likely to continue throughout the rest of this year. It seems like there's still some concerns with consumers about cost. There's still some consumer confidence challenges, and really I think what's probably driving most of the issue is high interest rates. Those were a big factor in the previous year, and I think that'll continue for most of this year as well.

We often focus on manufacturer’s challenges and struggles, but what's working with Kioti?

Phillips: Three major things are working for us. We have an outstanding dealer network that does a great job with promoting our product and taking care of our customers. That's one of the main things. We always talk about ‘you have to have a great product,’ but then you have to have a great dealer to support that product. It's not just about the sales side of things, it's the overall support, because ultimately that's what the customer's looking for. We're really fortunate to have a great group of dealers supporting us. 

The second thing is the product. The product offering that we have helps a lot of consumers solve a lot of problems that they have or tasks that they're trying to accomplish.

We have a very wide variety of product lines to fit really any need, any budget, any skill level, whatever the customer's looking for we can help them with. Going back to the importance of good dealers, they do a great job of helping the customer identify those things as well. 

Then, on our programming, we're aggressive on our retail sales programming, so we're doing all we can to help the dealers and help the customers find solutions to purchasing products. I mentioned the interest rates earlier, that's really what's been effective for us is offering some help on some low-rate finance options for customer buying solutions.

With regard to the company’s growth, can you share an update on the dealer network? How do you see your new role in those efforts?

Phillips: We're still actively growing. Even in a market that's down last year and this year, we're full speed ahead and we are continuing to grow our business. We're continuing to develop distribution channels and expand the ones that we have. That includes dealer network growth, and we are having a lot of success with both the addition of new tractor dealers, but of course the expanded offering of our compact construction line is helping with that channel growth, as well. So Kioti’s always looking to grow and move forward and nothing's changed as far as that's concerned.

I have a handful of things that we want to accomplish moving forward, but one of the priorities we're heavily involved in now is updating our business systems and strengthening our foundation. One of the things that I think has helped our success over the years is that we've worked really hard to develop that foundation. So our growth over the last 10 or 15 years has been kind of slow but very steady. We're doing a lot of expansion in that now as we continue to grow. We want to be able to better support our dealers, ultimately our customers. We're doing a lot of updates with those types of systems — both from a business system update and management systems and other internal systems. That has been the main project that we've all been working on the early part of 2025 here and are kind of near wrapping that up, but that's been our main focus.

I've been with Kioti for almost 22 years now. I started off as the territory sales manager and spent a lot of time in the field. That was really instrumental to learn and understand the dealer network, the challenges and issues that they face on a day-to-day basis, and how decisions we make and things we do impact them and their customers. It was a really good learning experience for me and the early part of my career with Kioti and they did a lot to help prepare me for this role. I’m excited for what's happening at Kioti as we have a lot going on. One of the great things about the tenure that I've had with the company is just the fact that I've seen all the growth that's happened over the last 20+ years and it's been a really great or been really fun to be a part of that, to be involved in it, to see it happen and develop.

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