Summary
Volkswagen Sales India Private Capacity is a completely owned subsidiary of Volkswagen Group. This group owns Skoda, Volkswagen, Audi, Lamborghini and Porsche. The company’s headquarters is located in Mumbai and the brand made its entry into India in 2001 when Skoda entered with the Octavia. The German group is one of the largest automakers in the world and now the company has even got Ducati in India.
Volkswagen began its Indian journey with the Jetta and then the Passat. The German automaker now has the Polo, Vento, Cross Polo, Jetta in its current line-up. This line-up will also get several new products like the Ameo, Polo GTI, Passat GTE and the Tiguan. These four products will be launched by the company till 2017 and it will help the company to increase its market reach with a wider portfolio. The Touerag was another SUV that company had introduced in 2010, which didn’t do well and it was later on discontinued.
Volkswagen Phaeton- a luxury sedan that will competed with the S-Class also didn’t do well and the company had to discontinue that as well.
Indian Operations and Management
Michael Mayer is heading Volkswagen Group Sales India Pvt Ltd. The company has a manufacturing unit in Chakan that is close to Pune. The company has a annual capacity of 200,000 units. This plant even manufactures Skoda Rapid as well. The old Fabia was also manufactured along with the Polo. The German auto major has contributed an aggregate sum of Rs. 3800 crores, which is the biggest investment made by any German organization in our nation.
The Chakan unit has an high level of vertical integration. The other plant that the company owns is in Aurangabad. This plant assembles the higher end vehicles like the Jetta, new Passat and the Tiguan will also be assembled in this plant.
Products & Services
Volkswagen is targeting niche car buyers and hence it doesn’t have a very extensive reach. The company has 122 dealerships in 113 urban localities in the country. The Polo and Vento are their mass vehicles and with the Ameo it will have a compact sedan too. The company has accelerated the motorsports activity in the country with the Polo R and Vento R cup.
Environmental Initiatives
Volkswagen at the moment doesn’t have any alternate fuel vehicle or an electric one. It has plug in hybrids in Europe and the Passat GTE will be coming to India in a year’s time. This will be a plug-in hybrid. The company is at the moment testing it in India and is working on introducing it very soon.
Founder & First Car
Volkswagen was formed under the name of Gesellschaft Zur Virbereitung des Deutschen Volkswagens mbH on 28th May 2937. This was established by the National Socialist Deutsche Arbeitsfront (German Labor Front). The company’s first product was the Beetle, which was designed by Adolf Hilter. The company began its journey with this vehicle and entered several markets with it. It kept on rectifying the product from time to time and soon it started growing in numbers, in products and then countries as well. Today, it is one of the large automaker in the world.
USP
Volkswagen is targeting premium car buyers in India and it is offering stylish looks, high quality interiors, comfortable seating, powerful and fuel-efficient powertrains. The Vento, Jetta and the Polo target car buyers who are willing to spend the extra buck for high quality and safe products.
Resale Value
The resale value of the Volkswagen vehicles isn’t as good as the Japanese vehicles. The European vehicles are known for their expensive maintenance and the Volkswagen also carries a similar image in India at the moment.
Competition
Volkswagen competes with brands like Skoda, Fiat and Ford India. At the moment, brand is in the premium segment and it competes with the premium players as these guys hold a niche market share.
)
