CHENNAI:German auto major Volkswagen Group has drawn up an India 2.0 strategy to capture the massive demand arising from the domestic market through addition of a new line to its Pune factory, a new product development centre and localisation targets. It also eyes five per cent market share to become the country’s third major player by 2025.
The group, which houses brands like Porsche, Lamborghini and Skoda Auto, said on Friday that it plans to launch its first car designed for the Indian market by 2020.“Through the India 2.0 strategy, we’re planning to increase production capacity by 20,000 units per year, increase the number of retail touchpoints from the current 121 locations through pop-up stores, capillaries in Tier 2 and 3 regions, leverage the Skoda Auto brand and increase localisation levels in the Modularer Querbaukasten (MQB) AO platform to 90 per cent by 2020 from the current 82 per cent,” said Steffen Knapp, Director, Volkswagen Passenger Cars, adding that these efforts will be covered under the already announced 1 billion euro (`8,000 crore) investment in India.
“As a result of these efforts, we’re looking to increase our market share in India to five per cent in 2025 from our current 1.86 per cent,” he added.“In regions like Europe, the demand for cars is very saturated, while the ratio of new versus used cars is 1:1.5. But when it comes to a market like India, the ratio is highly skewed towards new cars coupled with massive migration into urban areas.
Through our additional efforts, like a regional brand ambassador in key states and increasing local touchpoints, we’re expecting to bite into the demand from first-time buyers and women in the country,” Knapp said.The company also said that it will look to increase its loyalty rate from existing customers to 10 per cent from 6.4 per cent in 2017.