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Chennai, July 11

WITH the launch of the Chevrolet Optra, General Motors India says the Chevrolet brand will be its mainstream brand in the country while Opel will be the premium brand. Both the brands will co-exist, company officials told journalists here on Friday.

The Chevrolet brand will address every segment of the market, according to them.

What the mainstream brand means that it will be priced competitively whereas the premium brand, will always command a higher price, they explain. For instance, they say that the Chevrolet Optra is a D1 segment car priced at the level of a C2 segment car. Likewise, the Opel Corsa Sail, the recently launched hatchback, is a B+ segment car — positioned at the upper end of the growing B segment cars.

The idea behind launching the Chevrolet Optra, according to the officials, is that the D1 (the lower end of the luxury D segment) segment is fast replacing the cars in the C2 segment (the upper end of the mid-size sedan segment). General Motors India also believes that the C2 segment cars are ageing. Hence, the D1 segment, which was opened up by cars like the Skoda Octavia and more-recently the Toyota Corolla, are eating into that market. It is here that General Motors India is positioning the Chevrolet Optra, the officials say.

Mr Aditya Vij, President and Managing Director, General Motors India, told journalists that there was no question of phasing out the Opel Astra, which was launched about seven years ago. There was still demand for the car and some customers were even prepared to replace their older Astra with a new one. However, company officials do admit that the Chevrolet Optra could cannibalise the Opel Astra, considering the price overlap.

Asked about General Motors sourcing components for its global operations, Mr Vij said last year GM sourced $20 million worth of components. With the auto component industry also gearing up to create capacities to meet increased demand, General Motors expected this sourcing of components to grow at 6-7 per cent a year.

Mr Vij was addressing the press conference to launch the Optra in Chennai. The base version is priced in the city at Rs 7.97 lakh ex-showroom, the LS variant at Rs 8.58 lakh and the LT at Rs 9.79 lakh. The Chevrolet Optra is available at MPL Automobiles, one of the two GM dealers in Chennai.

Asked if General Motors was contemplating terminating its other dealer in the city, Mr Vij said the second dealer dealt with only Opel products. He said the company was discussing with the dealer on what needed to be done. To a question, Mr Vij said GM would increase the number of dealers from 40-45 now to about 60 next year, with an equal number of authorised service centres. MPL Automobiles has also opened a new 14,000-sq ft workshop with about 30 service bays, to take care of both the Opel and Chevrolet brands. The workshop was also formally inaugurated on Friday.

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