In an aggressive bid to more than double its sales, Volkswagen group company Skoda Auto India on Wednesday said it would launch Fabia and Octavia II sedans in 2005 and make the Indian operations a hub for South Asia.
The company aims to sell 10,000 units in 2005 and would also start assembling luxury sedan Superb in India by the end of 2004, which was being brought in as fully built units, Skoda Auto India chairman Karl-Gunter Buesching said.
The Indian arm of the Czech carmaker, which started production three years back, will also start exporting cars from the country to the Asia-Pacific region.
With plans to garner 20 per cent market share in the respective segment, Skoda Auto is gearing up to tap overseas market and start its maiden exports from 2005 by shipping cars to neighbouring Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.
"Ever since we started the feasibility study to enter India, the response has been very good. We are committed to the Indian market. We are going to stay here and keep rolling out products as desired by the customers," he said.
Skoda Auto would increase the number of its dealerships to 40 by the end of 2004, which would be hiked to 46 locations by 2005, Skoda Auto India managing director Imran Hassen said. It expects a 65 per cent rise in sales in 2004 over 4,656 units sold last year and targets 10,000 units next year.
In the process of shifting its operations to completely knocked down kits from semi-knocked down the company suffered production loss of five months. At present, it manufactures five variants of Octavia sedans, luxury car Superb and Laurin & Klement at its plant in Aurangabad. When asked about the investment in India, Buesching said, "I cannot tell the exact number but we will break-even in the near future."
Skoda Auto India started producing cars at its new greenfield facility from early 2004 with a workforce of 240. The new plant has a production capacity of 150,000 units annually.
The new plant was part of the $56 million investment the company had to make in India within seven years of its operations since 1999, according to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board guidelines. "We have already crossed that figure ($56 million)," Hassen said.
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