Monday, March 04, 2013
By Anil Jangid
Volkswagen all set to change course to bring sales back on track
Volkswagen has since its inception in India adopted a strategy that it will not stoop to conquer meaning that it will preserve its identity of being a luxury car brand. It is perhaps following this strategy that the German car giant has not entered the most lucrative low cost small car segment in the country. It is possibly the reason why the Volkswagen Up! launch is still pending and this is the reason why its subsidiary Skoda is still far from the Skoda Citigo launch. But things seem different in the recent past. Specially when the Indian car market is suffering blow after blow due to high interest rates, high fuel prices and the latest due to the dampening budget proposals.
In all, the situation is worse for some car makers and specially those which import luxury cars to India. It seems that being with two prominent cars – Volkswagen Polo and Volkswagen Vento will not too good to the car maker and it needs a serious resurrection in the form of new offerings as well as some interesting new facelift of the its present portfolio cars. It is this strategy to launch new cars in the volume segment i.e small car segment which can really give some tough time to Maruti and Hyundai cars is what is needed and this is what can bring back sheen to the car maker that has grown by 140 percent in the initial years since 2007 when it introduced the Volkswagen Passat.
Though shunning the premium car maker tag is a bit difficult but this is what the present time demands and this is what can do wonder. If VW sticks to the present plan and preserves its premium car maker image then it could be another victim of the slowdown in the Indian car industry and fail miserably. If it resurrects itself in the form of some lucrative offering with mouth watering offers on its existing cars, no wonder it can regain its lost position in the car industry in India.
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