Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Sunday, Jun 29, 2003
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Sunday, Jun 29, 2003 |
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Marketing
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Strategy Hyundai Motor move to enter rural areas — To deploy technicians in petrol pumps Our Bureau
BANGALORE June 28 IN a major thrust to increase penetration into rural areas and expand its customer care services, Hyundai Motor India Ltd plans to deploy 1,000 technicians across the country for carrying out car maintenance apart from setting up around 300 service points during the year. The Vice-President for customer care service, Mr V.D. Bhasin, said the company had tied up with Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) for deploying Hyundai certified technicians at their petrol stations across the country. "This would help car owners to get certain repair jobs done even at remote places," Mr Bhasin said. Mr Bhasin said the company planned to set up 50 more workshops in the country. Currently there are around 320 workshops in the country. He said Hyundai's initiative to sell cars in the rural areas had started yielding results. "We expect lot more people in rural areas to start buying because of our initiative," Mr Bhasin said. The company expects its B segment Santro and its diesel Accent CRDi to sell in large numbers in rural areas. It has already started road shows comprising a convoy of six to seven cars in major cities of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, where there is a sizeable affluent rural population. The company also offers test drives and options for upgrading cars. Hyundai has also tied up with financial institutions to give on the spot finances for buyers in rural areas. "This allows them to have easier access to funds without taking the trouble of going to cities," Mr Bhasin said. According to a study conducted by the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in 2001, the number of middle and high-income group households is expected to grow to 111 million by 2007 from 80 million in 2001. The study said that there were an equal number of `middle-income and above' households in the rural areas as there were in the urban areas and about twice as many `lower middle-income' households. At the highest level, there are 2.3 million urban households compared with 1.6 million urban households in rural areas.
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