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Anjali Prayag

Apart from inter-city travel, Volvo is also targeting the city-bus and the tourism segments.

Bangalore , Sept 25

WITH several State Government-owned transport organisations giving fillip to the luxury bus travel, Volvo India anticipates `considerable' growth in the next couple of years.

About 900 Volvo B7Rs (30 per cent of which belong to Government transport corporations) are already running on inter-city routes across the country.

In fact, for the first time, state-owned transport corporations in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Maharashtra and Rajasthan are challenging the private sector in these regions, says Mr Akash Passey, Vice-President, Bus Division, Volvo India Private Ltd.

Last year, Volvo sold over 400 B7Rs in the country and is expecting a growth of 25-30 per cent every year at least for the next couple of years, Mr Passey says. The company's turnover for the year ended March 2005 was about Rs 600 crore.

Apart from inter-city travel, Volvo is also targeting the city-bus and the tourism segments.

In June this year, Volvo India received an order for 25 city buses from the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation and the buses are expected to be delivered by the year-end. Though the city bus segment bus will be 15-20 per cent more expensive than the inter-city buses because of its electronically controlled features involving more sophisticated technology, the low-floor concept will usher in a big change in the city-bus travel, Mr Passey envisages.

The Indian city-bus market is estimated to have sales of 10,000-12,000 units every year. "Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi and Mumbai are big markets," says Mr Passey.

Another area of growth for the Swedish major would be the tourism industry with about 10 per cent of their annual sales coming from the segment. Already 50 B7Rs are running in the tourism sector in the country.

Though South and Western India have contributed to a major chunk of the Volvo sales in the country since the B7R was first launched in 2001, Volvo has already made inroads into the Central, North and Eastern India.

"We have already captured a big section of the traffic commuting the Mumbai-Pune route thus even challenging the rail travel business," says Mr Passey.

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