Wednesday, November 30, 2011
By Pranjal Gera
Volkswagen to drive-in Porsche product line-up in India
Volkswagen AG, the largest car maker in the European market, is now all set to expand its operations in the Indian market that has high growth potential in both volume driven segment and high end luxury car segment. The company is looking forward to roll-out the product line-up of brand Porsche under its banner in the Indian market with having a new team to manage the operations of the brand.
The Porsche product line-up that will be brought to the Indian market as a completely built unit by Volkswagen include Porsche 911, Porsche Boxter, Porsche Cayman, Porsche Panamera, sports utility vehicle (SUV) Porsche Cayenne. While initially these models will be brought by Volkswagen Group as a completely built unit, the car maker is expected to start assembling a few of these models locally, once the sales volume picks-up. While the tax on CBU units is 110 percent in India, the completely knocked-down units assembled in the country attract on 10 percent import duty.
As per the recent media reports, the set-up for Porsche will be made somewhat similar to structure of luxury car brand Audi, which operates through five main departments in the country including marketing, dealer development, sales, after sales, and press communications. The new Porsche team in India will be having strength of 15 to 18 people, initially. The new Porsche team in India will be reporting to Anil Reddi, the head of sales at Audi India. The new Porsche team will continue working with the current set of eight dealerships of Porsche in India.
Volkswagen currently operates in the Indian with two of its subsidiaries including Skoda and Audi. In total, Volkswagen group accounts for a total of 5 percent market share in the India passenger car segment.
