adengage

Monday, November 10, 2008

GM tightlipped on new ‘small’ car







General Motors India, which is targeting a 10% marketshare by 2010 as against the current 4%, has lined up two new launches, including a small car and a few variants of existing cars during next year.
The company expects to end the year with a 20% growth over last year at 70,000 to 80,000 units, said P Balendran, director and vice-president (corporate affairs).
Explaining the company’s plans for India, he said, “The company is currently working on two new cars, to be launched during 2009. Out of this, one will be a small car. It could be smaller or similar to that of the Spark or even a higher version. We are not in a position to disclose details at this point of time.”
“With the commencement of the second plant at Talegaon in Pune, the company is in a position to make most of the Spark models from this plant apart from other cars. We are looking at a 10% market share by 2010 (200,000 units per year). We hope to achieve our target with the new launches and variants,” he added.
Despite overall recession in the market coupled with lack of finance and high interest cost, the company hopes to register a growth of 20% in the current year.
“We are looking at anywhere between 70,000 and 80,000 units as compared to 60,000 units last year,” he said. With the spurt in Spark sales during the festive season, the company has sold nearly 60,000 cars till October and is on target to achieve the target, he added.
On the SUV side, Captiva has been the market leader with a market share of 22%. “As against our annual target of 800 to 1000 units, the company has already sold nearly 2,500 Captivas and hopes to end up around 3,000 units, which is very significance for us,” he said. On the MUV side, as against the target of 20,000 Taveras, the company has already sold 16,000 units and is on target to achieve it, he said further.
Earlier, addressing a press conference after launching the new Tavera in Chennai on Wednesday, Karl Slym, president and managing director, said as compared to others, GM India has been able to post positive growth in sales over the last few months despite there being an overall slowdown in the market. With the new facility in place at Pune, the company is in a position to deliver more cars into the...

No comments:

 
tag cloud