BMW to expand India investment to Rs 1250 cr
Words: FWD Media Images: Various Sources
With an aim to enhance operations in India, German luxury carmaker BMW is investing another Rs130 crore, taking its total investment in the country to Rs 1,250 crore.
The company will launch new version of its locally manufactured 5 Series later this month and 6 Series Gran Turismo (GT) model next year to strengthen its product portfolio in India.
BMW India President VikramPawahsaid, “Since 2007, we have been consistently investing in India. This year, we are going to increase our investment further to up to Rs 1,250 crore on a cumulative basis.”
BMW has so far invested Rs 1,120 crore in the Indian operations.The new investment will go into BMW group operations, including Motarrad (two-wheeler business) as well as the financial services arm, he added.
With the fresh investments, the total investments on BMW group operations in India will go up to Rs 520 crore and on BMW Financial Services to Rs 730 crore.
The company is looking to expand its dealer network in the country. It currently has 18 partners and is present in 30 cities.
“Besides, we have 63 touch points. Out of these, we have 41 sales outlets. So we want to take these 41 outlets to 50 by 2018,” Pawah said.
In other emerging towns, in addition to 30 major cities, the company utilises its ‘Mobile Studios’ to expand the market further.
This year, the weather proof BMW mobile studio will cover 50 towns, Pawah said. On new product launches, he said: “As part of our power to lead strategy, product offensive starts. In next two weeks, we will be launching the new 5 Series.”
The model has played a big role in the success of BMW in India. Since 2007, the company has sold around 66,000 vehicles in India with 5 Series having contributed close to 30 percent of the total sales.
“Next year, we will be introducing another model in between 5 and 7 Series, called the 6 GT and that would again define a new segment and create new market for us,” Pawah said.
On local manufacturing, Pawah said: “We are locally producing eight of our total 16 models that are available. So as we introduce new models, also the new 5 Series, will be produced in the Chennai plant.”
The 6 GT would also be manufactured locally, he added.The company’s Chennai plant has an installed capacity of 14,000 units on a single shift basis. It started operations in March 2007 and currently produces BMW’s 1 Series, 3 Series, 3 Series Gran Turismo, 5 Series, 7 Series along with SUVs X1, X3 and X5.
In the January-May period this year, BMW has sold 3,533 units in India at a growth of 8 per cent.
Pawah further said the company would be focusing on its power to lead strategy to grow the entire premium car market.
“The idea is to grow the segment. Currently in India, premium car segment remains less than 2 percent of the total passenger vehicle market (3 million last fiscal) as compared to 5-10 per cent in various countries,” Pawah said.