Friday, October 2, 2009

Volkswagen India plans 40 outlets by end-2009

On the sidelines of inaugurating a new dealership outlet in Chennai, Volkswagen India has confirmed that its plans to double its distribution in the country to 40 outlets by the end of this year. Currently, the Indian arm of the German automaker has 22 dealership outlets in the country.

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"As a precursor to our high-volume model Polo, we are expanding our distribution network. By the end of this year the company will have 40 dealers," Neeraj Garg, director (passenger cars) of Volkswagen Group India, told reporters here after inaugurating a new dealership. Depending on the market, company would further increase the number of dealers, Garg said. He added that the company would step up spending on brand promotion activities in the country to meet the mounting competition challenges. "It is true the Volkswagen brand is not well known in the country. This will be corrected with appropriate branding strategy," he was quoted as saying to reporters.

European largest carmaker has also confirmed that its ‘Polo’ is well on track and is posed to hit the Indian market by early next year. The small car, Polo, a hatchback model would compete with B+2 segment, Volkswagen India (Passenger car) director Neeraj Garg told reporters in Chennai. He also said, “We have heavily invested in the plant at Pune and right now, the pre-production stage is going on and we should launch Polo by next year."

Volkswagen India has recently established a greenfield facility at Chakan in Pune, with a capacity to manufacture 110,000 cars annually, where its sister company Skoda began its Fabia’s production and where the Polo model will be also rolled out next year. Currently, VW assembles its luxury sedans – Passat and Jetta-in India at Skoda's Aurangabad plant.

The company imports its SUV Touareg as a CBU. It is now gearing up to launch its high-end luxury sedan Phaeton and SUV Tiguan in the next few years, apart from the iconic Beetle, through the CBU route. It also plans to bring in its concept car Up! by 2011, which would be positioned below the Polo-based model. The Pune plant would be exclusively manufacturing Polo range of cars

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