Volvo running to grab the top spot in the Indian luxury car segment
The dethroning of Mercedes Benz in the Indian luxury car market has come as good news for the Swedish auto maker Volvo. The top position in the luxury car market are still grabbed by the German auto majors however the positions are changed. Mercedes top slot was taken over by BMW, with Mercedes falling on to the second position and recently that too was grabbed by Audi and now BMW is at the top with Audi coming second and Mercedes laying at the third position. All this taking over procedure has gave a glimmer of hope to Volvo India as it just holds a small footprint.
Volvo arrived in India in the year 2008 and now the company has zeroed in the emerging Indian market for the coming months. The sales last year lay at 320 units last year and the company is eyeing to increase it to 1,000 units this year but still with 1,000 units sales Volvo is too far in the competition. The luxury car segment in India holds just one percent of the overall volume of 2.5 million cars. In the coming eight years i.e. by 2020 the overall sales are expected to touch 5 million milestone with the luxury market having a stake of three percent i.e. 1.5 lakh units. Volvo is eyeing to score a whopping 15% in the Indian luxury cars segment.
Volvo at present has eight individual showrooms and seven dealerships in India. Volvo seeing the market bent towards luxury cars with diesel engine recently introduced D3 diesel engine trim in its existing car portfolio that includes S60, S 80 and SUV XC60. The company is also going to roll out a new car at the beginning of 2013 also in lieu of the Union budget 2012 Volvo has raised the car prices by an average of Rs.1 lakh.