Merc set to bring A Class premium compact to India

In India the automobile market is dominated by compact cars. to join the race in the small car segment, Mercedes Benz is planning to bring its small car, the A Class, to India, a top official said.


Benz is planning to bring its small car, the A Class, to India, a top official said.


“The competition is heating up in the small car segment and we plan to bring our small car, the A Class, to the Indian market within two years,” Peter Trettin, president & CEO of Daimler, Central and Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia, said.


The A Class model has sold over 680,000 units worldwide since its launch in 2004. It was positioned as the trailblazer for a new vehicle segment.


Mercedes-Benz plans to expand its premium compact vehicle portfolio comprising the A and B Class from two to four models starting end-2011. The future models will offer product attributes that are already popular among A and B Class customers, such as a spacious interior. The models will also set a new tone through the introduction of additional variants and concepts.


Trettin said the company would position the A Class as its entry-level car in the Indian market. “It will be priced competitively to get a foothold in the market,” said Trettin. He was visiting the 100-acre greenfield plant at Chakan near Pune, in which the company has invested Euro 50 million.


Trettin said the Indian economy was growing rapidly and with it the aspirations of the people for better cars compared to the regions he was overseeing. “With the growth in the Indian economy, we expect the demand for our products to rise considerably,” he said.


Wilfried Aulbur, MD and CEO, Mercedes Benz India, claimed sales had picked up since December. “In 2010, the luxury car segment grew 80 per cent, but Mercedes Benz has grown 157 per cent and this is without the GL launch,” he pointed out.


The Mercedes Benz GL Class is a crossover sports utility vehicle and it matches, size-wise, Audi’s Q7 and BMW’s X5.


The company’s bus order book was full till September, mainly from the state transport departments, Aulbur said, but did not disclose volumes. “Demand in the market is picking up rapidly,” he added.


Trettin said the commercial vehicles market in India was doing well compared to other markets where sales had fallen by 90 per cent. “Eastern Europe and Central Europe were suffering and the company had to buy back stocks from the dealers and distribute them in other markets,” he said. The Middle East also saw a dip in commercial vehicles sales, he added.


Trettin said that from 24,000 trucks and 24,000 vans sold in 2008, sales were down to 9,000 each of trucks and vans in 2009.

Ford India to phase out Fusion superhatch

On the sidelines of announcing its dealership rollout pan-India, Ford India Private Limited (FIPL) has stated that it has firmed up its plans to phase out its not-so-successful car, Fusion in the medium term, without revealing any timeframe. The Fusion was launched in the Indian market in 2004 and is available in three variants and the company had promoted it as a combination of a hatchback and sports utility vehicle.



"We will discontinue the Fusion and our focus in the small car segment will be exclusively on Figo in the Indian market. The Fusion was also giving us a relatively small volume and we hope to do well with the Figo," Ford India managing director and President Michael Boneham told reporters in New Delhi. He also maintained that the phasing out is part of a product rationalisation strategy with the firm looking to focus on the compact car segment, which comprises over 70 per cent of the Indian car market that is heading towards the two million mark per year. He said the Figo would be positioned in the small-car segment, competing with cars from the Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai Motor India and Tata Motors stables. He told reporters, “After all, this segment constitutes the bulk of the market and even a 10 per cent annual growth would mean a huge addition to demand.” He did not believe that the premium hatchback segment was the place to be in, given its smaller numbers.

Meanwhile, as Ford India gears up to launch the small hatchback Figo, it has said that it will launch a new car every 12-18 months for the next few years. The Indian arm of the Detroit auto biggie affirmed that that it is better to be a volume player in the country, for which being aggressive in the small-car segment is the way forward. Ahead of its ambitious entry into the compact car segment, the company’s Indian subsidiary Ford India, on Tuesday opened 28 dealerships across 24 cities in the country, with small cities (Tier-II, III) as the main target market growth.

“What we are planning to do here is launch a new car every 12 to 18 months,” Michael Boneham, told reporters recently. Nearly 70 per cent of all cars sold in the country fall in the small car segment. “For us the majority of new launches will be in that segment across the next four to five years,” he said.

GM launches new mini car Beat

GM launches new mini car Beat, expects 40% sales surge this year

With the launch of its global mini car, the ‘Chevrolet Beat’, General Motors India sees its total sales crossing 100,000 in 2010 from 70,000 units in 2009.

The 1.2 litre petrol car will be available in three variants — PS, LS and LT. The price will range from Rs 3.25 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi) for the PS variant, Rs 3.54 lakh for the LS and Rs 3.94 lakh for the high-end LT variant.

“With its best-in-segment design, performance and safety, the Beat is destined to become an industry benchmark and a winner among consumers in India,” GM India President and Managing Director Karl Slym told reporters at the launch of the car in Delhi.

On how the price was kept so low, Ankush Arora, vice-president (sales, marketing and after sales), said: “This has been achieved by 60 per cent localisation of parts.”

“We will start exporting the car only by December-end and will export 20 per cent of the units produced,” Slym said. The company is looking at Europe and the Asia-Pacific. Slym added that the company would launch the Beat’s diesel version later this year.

Beat is the second car from GM’s 300 series platform, following last year’s the launch of its utility vehicle, Chevrolet Cruze. The company took 27 months to develop it. The car will be launched across 150 countries in the coming months. As of now, Beat has been launched in Korea, Europe and West Asia. It sells 5,000 units a month in Korea.

The US auto major is also working on designing a small car at its Bangalore centre. “We are developing vehicles for India at the Bangalore centre and the focus is more on small cars, as India is a small car market,” said General Motors’ Vice-President (Global Design) Edward T Welburn. The Bangalore design centre, with around 60 engineers, is one of the 10 such centres of General Motors worldwide.