The growth of the compact sedan segment has got every car maker in the Indian market riled up. Looking at the success of models like Maruti Suzuki Swift DZire and Honda Amaze, more and more car makers want to join the bandwagon and the latest in German firm Volkswagen. According to a report by Business Standard, Volkswagen is set to launch a model in this segment. Sources suggest that this car could make its way to the Indian market in the year 2016 and is likely to be priced in excess of Rs. 5 lakh. Quite logically, Volkswagen is launching this car in competition with the likes of Honda Amaze, Maruti Suzuki Swift DZire and Tata Zest.
Thierry Lespiaucq, Managing Director at Volkswagen, spoke about the firm wanting to launch an “India-specific” sedan. "It will be a compact Sedan and compatible with Indian conditions. The rollout will be most likely during next year," he was quoted as saying. The official from Volkswagen, despite confirming the production of a new model, did not give any specific inputs on the price.
The Managing Director was in the south Indian city of Coimbatore to launch a new dealership, where the firm’s 3,00,000th model was delivered in the country. He sounded highly optimistic while talking about the Indian market and said that the firm hopes to introduce more models within the next two years. Volkswagen has managed to gather a lot of momentum and would certainly want to capitalise on that, according to Lespiaucq.
Volkswagen, according to sources, is likely to begin its launching spree with the compact sedan and rumours regarding the model have been doing rounds for quite a while now. Like Honda’s Amaze, Volkswagen’s compact sedan will be tailor-built for the Indian market, customers and conditions. Experts feel that this strategy has a high success rate and if Volkswagen can keep the price of this car in check, it might succeed hugely with this model.
Besides the compact sedan, Volkswagen will launch new Passat, a Sports Utility Vehicle and a new version of Beetle in the Indian market. The German firm has been a consistent performer in India and its models like Polo, Vento and Passat have done really well. Experts feel Volkswagen is on a path similar to that of Honda with the only difference being its price strategy. Given the quality constraints of the firm, it will be tough to price any vehicle aggressively. However, with increasing competition and such huge profits up for grabs, anything is possible in the Indian market.
