Mercedes regained its top luxury car maker position in the Indian market once again earlier this year. The company lost its number one position to BMW last year but with slew of new launches and a better marketing strategy the company is now back in front seat.
The automaker is adding a second production shift at its Pune, western India facility to double the plant’s capacity to 10,000 vehicles a year, said Suhas Kadlaskar, the local unit’s director of corporate affairs. Mercedes Benz India Pvt Ltd is the local arm of Daimler AG and plans to step up investment, increase capacity and headcount at its India operations as luxury car sales surge on back of increasing number of millionaires in the country. The company plans to invest Rs350 crore at its Chakan plant.
"Within only two years of the start of our new facility, we have already exceeded first-shift capacity due to high demand of our vehicles. "We are [now] moving into permanent two-shift operation," said Wilfried Aulbur, managing director and chief executive at Mercedes-Benz India. Mercedes-Benz has posted a 78.5% rise in sales during April-November this year to 3827 vehicles and expects numbers to move up rapidly in line with the growing numbers of millionaires and billionaires in India. Mercedes will expand CKD (completely knocked down) production in India from 2013 after the operations begin at the paint shop.
