Terming India as a ‘focus market’ for the German luxury car maker, Mercedes Benz India Managing Director and CEO Eberhard Kern said India offered immense growth opportunities. The company would continue with its product offensive strategy here, he added.
Mr. Kern said the country had the potential among the top ten markets for the auto giant, which would complete 20 years of operation here in November, in the coming years.
“India is a focus market for us; there is a time where we can see India to be in top ten markets. That time has not come yet, and how much time it will take is difficult to say,” he said during an interview with The Hindu .
Drawing comparison with China and Russia, he said 10 years back China was even smaller market than India and had peaked really fast. “Similar is the story with Russia. In 2005, sales there were about 4,500 units (which is Mercedes’ half-year’s sales in India in 2014), but today it is 50,000 units. So, you see what is possible. And, we strongly believe best time of India is still ahead and that is why we are investing here,” Mr. Kern added.
Mercedes Benz India, he said, was confident of a double-digit growth this year. That would take sales figures to five-digit number, he added. Last year, it sold about 9,000 cars in India.
Talking about the automobile market, he said, “What we see is that the sentiment has improved. The mood is better, and there is more hope and trust in the future. There are more walk-ins, and more enquiries. The total market at least is not negative anymore.”
Mr. Kern, who has been heading India operations for nearly two years now, said India was as important as markets such as China and Russia for the global giant as it saw tremendous opportunity here.
“Given the fact that luxury segment in India is still small…only about 1.5 per cent of total car market is luxury, there is a big opportunity there. People are looking at upgrading to luxury cars. So aspiration is clearly there,” he said.
On the trends seen in India luxury car market, he said, “One trend is clearly three-box design sedans. This is what was there first and it is still very important. Second and the fastest-growing part of the luxury car market is SUVs, particularly mid-size and compact. Third, the performance segment is picking up. That is the reason we are focussing on AMG — the performance brand of Mercedes.”
The company does not have a mid-size compact SUV in its Indian product portfolio. “In a Mercedes global portfolio there is product, GLK. Unfortunately, it is available only as a left-hand drive. So, the current GLK cannot be offered in India. But there will be a successor. And, it is not wrong if you believe this successor might come to India,” he said.
While Mr. Kern did not elaborate on the coming new launches for the year, he said company’s ‘product offensive’ strategy would continue.
Meanwhile, the company, on Monday, announced hiking the prices of its products in India by up to 2.5 per cent from next month to partially offset rising input costs and high exchange rate.
Mercedes Benz sells a range of luxury cars and sports utility vehicles in India, including compact cars A Class and B class, sedans C Class, E Class and S Class and G63 AMG, priced between Rs.26.19 lakh and Rs.1.85 crore.
