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K. Giriprakash

Bangalore, Nov. 20 Fiat expects to export about 7,000 cars from its Indian plant even as the car maker has ruled out any plans to phase out its Palio model in spite of a rapid decline in sales.

“We are studying the situation,” the Fiat India Vice-President-Commercial, Mr Ravi Bhatia, told Business Line. He said the company has no plans to phase out the model.

Fiat now sells about 50 Palios a month compared with 300 units before the Grande Punto was launched.

The Grande Punto sells between 1,500 units and 1,800 units a month. The Linea, a sedan, sells about 1,250 units.

Fiat sold about 5,000 cars during 2008-09 but with the launch of the Grande Punto and the Linea, it has been selling 2,500-2,750 cars a month this fiscal. All three models are being manufactured from the Rajangaon plant in Maharashtra.

Mr Bhatia said a part of the $510-million funding it received from Citigroup recently has been used to set up its biggest warehouse in the country near Pune.

Because of the huge dealer network of Tata Motors, Mr Bhatia said, Fiat has been able to cover over 70 per cent of the potential market in the country.

He pointed out that there has been hardly any case of customers planning to buy a Tata Motors’ car ending up buying a Fiat model because the dealer showrooms house the models of both the car manufacturers. Mr Bhatia said the B-plus segment has been growing at over 40 per cent because of cars like the Grande Punto. In the case of the Linea, which is the in the C-plus segment, there was a negative growth during the first half of the year. But since then the segment has been growing between 7 per cent and 8 per cent.

Mr Bhatia said Fiat has recently a pilot project of retail sales excellence programme. Under this programme, salespersons are trained on how to treat the customers and how to close sales. Six dealers have been identified for the pilot project, he added.

More Stories on : Outlook | Exports & Imports | Cars

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