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Mercedes-Benz to bring affordable models to regain India leadership
Posted on 15 Jun 20127,810 Views Comments
The three pointed star is looking to regain its stronghold in the Indian luxury car market with sub Rs. 25 lakh products.
Mercedes Benz India, part of the German luxury carmaker Daimler group, has drawn up a game changer strategy in a bid to regain the leadership position in the Indian luxury cars market by 2016, said its MD & CEO Peter T Honegg.
The Daimler company, which lost its leadership slot to BMW and Audi few years back in India, is preparing to launch entry level luxury cars in the sub Rs 25 lakh segment, a game changing segment that is growing significantly, he said.
Honegg said the company has the products in the sub Rs 25 lakh category in the European portfolio but unfortunately those models were not available in the right hand drive mode to be introduced immediately in the Indian market.
"We are little bit delayed but we are bringing in such models in the B-Class by end of this year and in the A-Class sometime next year. The whole game will change then with models with much fresher look from the design point of view compared to the competitors," he told ET.
Honegg was in Hyderabad on Thursday to launch C-Class AMG performance edition.
He said Mercedes Benz expects to take another 8-12 months to bring some of these sub Rs 25 lakh models to the Indian luxury car market and have derivatives of A-Class in 2013-14. It hopes to have the full portfolio, including the entry level models, available to the Indian consumers from 2015-16 onwards to be on par with the competitors.
Mercedes Benz India currently has a share of around 30% in the Indian luxury car market. "The regaining of market share should start from 2014 and we should be in the number one position in 2015-16," he said.
However, he said, in the backdrop of depreciating rupee and increasing import duties, the carmaker will focus immediately on staying profitable in the market before regaining market share in the medium term, he said. Towards staying profitable, the company has decided to hike the car prices by 5-6%.
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