CHENNAI: French automobile giant Citroën officially announced its entry into Indian market and introduced its first product at an event on Wednesday. The Citroën C5 Aircross SUV will be the company’s first vehicle that will be launched in India by end of 2020.
A spokesperson from the company said that a total of 50,000 cars would be manufactured from its Hosur plant with around 70 per cent of the car’s parts assembled locally at this plant. This model, which will come into the Indian market, will be slightly different from its European counterpart in terms of dimensional changes and a manual gearbox in addition to an automatic one.
“From July 1, 2019 we begin our dealer-partner live tour in India to start partnership with potential dealers. Our network focus will be on developing physical and digital formats also,” said Roland Bouchara, senior vice-president, marketing section, Citroën.
PSA Peugeot group, which is a part owner of Citroën, has invested Rs 600 crore in the company and will be manufacturing vehicles and power trains at the company’s facility in Tamil Nadu. The CEO of PSA group, Linda Jackson, said at the event that Citroën would focus on localisation and launch a new model every year in India starting from 2021. “The Indian automotive market is dynamic with high potential. Launching Citroën in India is one of our plans for 2019-2021,” said Jackson.