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(Left to right) - Mr Arun Mammen, Director, MRF, Mr Namio Hasumi, President and CEO, JD Power Asia Pacific, Mr Kobayashi, Director, Bridgestone India, Mr Randy Shockley, Vice-President - Marketing, Ford India Ltd, Mr J.I. Kim, Managing Director, Hyundai Motor India Ltd, Dr K. Kumar, Adviser - Engineering, Maruti Udyog Ltd, and Mr Atsushi Toyoshima, Managing Director, Toyota Kirloskar Motor, at the JD Power award function in Chennai on Tuesday.

CHENNAI, March 12

THERE is a quality revolution in the light vehicles industry so much so that the gap between the Indian and the global light vehicles industry is narrowing down, according to an official of J.D. Power, the international firm that undertakes quality and customer satisfaction, and other studies on the automobile industry.

There is definitely maturity in the Indian automobile industry with great impact on quality, according to Mr Gerrit Kuyntjes, General Manager, Singapore office, J.D. Power Asia Pacific.

Addressing a meeting here when the J.D. Power awards for 2002 were given away to various automobile manufacturers and tyre companies, Mr Kuyntjes said the Indian automobile industry had reached close to global standards as far as the APEAL (automotive performance, execution and layout) scores were concerned. This trend was expected to continue.

Indian consumers were increasingly becoming critical and were shopping around and crosschecking features before deciding on buying a vehicle. This meant that achieving sales satisfaction was going to be a major challenge in future.

Mr Kuyntjes said that over the last five years the number of models had increased from 31 to 59. The overall light vehicles market had also grown from 4,82,000 in 1998 to 7,04,000 in 2002. With the excise duty reduction and lowering of tariffs combined with the easy availability of funds, there was likely to be increased consumer spending on automobiles.

There would also be increased competition fuelled by entry of OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) branching out into new segments as also new entrants coming in.

Compared to conducting the quality and customer satisfaction studies in other markets, the difficulties faced in doing these studies in India included the lack of access to vehicle registration data, because of which it was difficult to increase the sample size. J.D. Power hoped to increase the sample sizes in future and also cover low sales volume mix and models. The objective was to raise the criteria for sufficient sample by 2004, and also apply the same eligibility criteria across all markets for greater comparability, he said.

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