Volkswagen, which grew its sales 10 times to 42,000 vehicles in 2010 and expects the Indian car market to grow between 12 and 16 per cent this year, hopes to outpace the market growth in the current year.
Mr Neeraj Garg, Member of Board, Director, Passenger Cars, Volkswagen Group Sales India Pvt Ltd, told journalists here that the company, which has a plant with a manufacturing capacity of 110,000 vehicles a year at Pune, would be looking at a “much higher growth” than the market — but refused to give any target numbers.
He said that sales last year were driven primarily by Volkswagen's small cars, Polo and Vento. The least price of any variant of these two models is around Rs 5.30 lakh. Asked if Volkswagen could bring in a small car in the sub-Rs 5-lakh category, that could be pitted against models such as Maruti Alto and Ford Figo, Mr Garg said that he did not wish to disclose the company's strategy.
Mr Garg was here in connection with the opening of a showroom, Volskwagen's 71{+s}{+t}, in Chennai. The dealership franchisee is Sundaram Motors, a division of the T.V. Sundaram Iyengar and Sons Ltd, the first company of the TVS group. Mr Garg also did not wish to disclose the number of dealerships that Volkswagen would open in the current year.
He said Volkswagen would introduce a new version of the Jetta in the later half of this year.
Volkswagen launched the Rs 21-lakh Passat and ‘IPL edition' of the Vento in Chennai today.