General Motors India, a subsidiary of American car manufacturer General Motors, is setting its sights beyond the urban segment and seems to be focussing on smaller towns for their tier III sales in India. The only manufacturer to do this before is Maruti Suzuki one of India’s largest car maker that currently holds nearly half of market shares.
The Economic Times reported that General Motors India’s Managing Director and President, Karl Slym, to have iterated that GM India is planning to further penetrate their growth in small towns so that they can beat the slowdown in the market.
The American car maker General Motors’ subsidiary GM India is eyeing urban sales for growth and is reportedly focusing on tier III and smaller towns to boost its sales. The country’s largest passenger car maker Maruti Suzuki which has nearly half of the market shares is the only car maker to have done that before. He said that the slowdown impact was slow in small towns and car loan dependency of people there was less. He further told that this year’s good monsoon and favourable signs has made rural Indian people much more comfortable.
Economic Times report said that GM India was planning to stream in fifty new outlets in small towns and III tier cities this year to stay ahead in the market. There are currently 250 outlets in India. Mr. Karl Slym told that there were about 60% sales in the metros and 40% in non-metros a couple of years back, and there was a reverse in those figures now. He told that they expect the sales in smaller towns to trend up to 70% with their idea to penetrate small cities.
The report further told that GM were expecting a sale of 1,40,000 units compared to the sale of 1,10,000 units last year. Karl Slym tells that the company grew 60% while overall growth of the market was 30%. Setting all these aside, they might also consider exporting Beat Diesel, one of the latest hatchbacks, into Europe. The Chevrolet Beat Diesel is one of the smallest diesel cars to have been developed by General Motors with its 1.0 litre engine. Cars manufactured in India currently are being exported to Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Slym said that after looking into establishing the position of diesel hatchbacks in India they will consider export of the same to Europe as there is a lot of demand for diesel cars in Europe. The ratio of demand might not be 70:30 as in India, but Europe’s demand for it is certainly on the rise. He concluded saying opportunities such as these should be taken, but it would certainly take time.
