Struggled hard to face every household and finally succeeded, Volkswagen India is dreaming to step down and launch a budget brand too, claimed a report.
The VW is minutely studying feasibility and is also in talks with the Chinese partner to make the budget project a reality soon.
Hopefully, the German automaker is famous for its vehicles positioned above Rs 5 lakh in India, but rolling down a one in the sub-Rs 5 lakh bracket will help it to penetrate suavely against the competition, because the trademark of VW had remained quite generous in selling the vehicles throughout the globe.
Hopefully, as guessed, the sub-5 lakh brand will take 3-4 years at least for rolling off from the sheet of paper to pillars of metal. The components, engine, gearbox and all such will be locally produced in order to bring down the cost, which in return needed those numbers of years to work out with great impact.
“We are seriously considering a budget brand for India. We have looked at all the ideas which VW (HQ) had looked up for China. My teams here have been working very closely with the Chinese and German counterparts; we have the complete list of all the ideas that they have generated, and we know each and every idea. We are looking at what will be most prudent and suitable for India,” Mahesh Kodumudi, MD and Chief Representative of Volkswagen India, told ET.
Alongside the budget-brand that the Volkswagen is planning to launch in China will be altogether different than the one going to see daylight in India. “India is one of the most brutal lowest retail markets in the world. What might be a low-cost model in China, may still not be low-cost in India,” Kodumudi added.
However, the automaker confirmed there will be no compromise on quality and service factors, where it looks like the Europe largest car maker is busy reworking the process of buying experience, after sales service and such to convince the brand shall face no heck in its operation from the backlog.
In the meanwhile, till the new VW cost-efficient brand hits the showroom, it will roll in 6-7 new products, including Polo facelift, Vento facelift, new sub-4 meter sedan (Polo Stuffe), a compact SUV and the new Jetta, Passat, Beetle and Tiguan at the Indian showrooms. These actions may entice up brand image of Volkswagen in the premium end, where the low-profile would then be empty posing as a lucrative ground for the sub-5 lakh brand to barge in.
“We want to build the brand and nurture it. Volkswagen brand has its own appeal and we should stick to our strength of superior products, technologies that go in, innovation that we do, performance, the precision of our build and we want to stick to it,” said Kodumudi.
VW had pulled on the socks and is trying to bring things back in place within the next three-four years, where in return it also expect the market share to act as a garnish into the whole, with expectation of 7-9% share for the entire group by end of 2018-2020.
“Think about it, for me to get a good market share, I need to have a complete range of products, a complete portfolio of products, right from Touraeg, which will be CBU, then we have a Passat, the mid-size SUV, Jetta, Vento, Polo, compact SUV, a compact sedan and maybe even a sub-Polo car, which will give us a big portfolio to attack the market,” added Kodumudi.
Source: ET
