Mecedes-Benz, which is bullish about its luxury car sales in India, is placing its attention on the eastern region for tapping growing opportunities by extending its distribution presence.
Currently, 3.5 per cent of car maker’s India sales turnover comes from the east, least among all regions. However, it recorded highest growth rate among all the regions.
Boris Fitz, Vice President - Sales and Network Development, Mercedes-Benz India Pvt Ltd said here on Thursday that after opening a centre in Bhubneswar last year, the German car marker planned to set up an outlet in Jamshedpur. The company has also established retail outlets in Raipur and Bhopal.
“The Jamshedpur centre would open in August-September this year”, he added. Mercedes-Benz is now expanding its network to tier I and tier II cities, is, however, yet to look at north-east as opportune market.
In 2013 calendar year, it sold more than 250 units (all models and variants put together), which showed around 60 per cent growth over the previous year.
In January to May this year, the growth rate improved further to around 75 per cent. “In terms of growth, east outpaced the national growth of 31 per cent in 2013”, Fitz observed. The company’s marketing channel partner in Kolkata is setting up a new service centre.
Mercedes-Benz has also adding exclusive outlets in Lucknow and Nasik. As of now, the company’s total number of outlets stood at 64.
Fitz said that at present Mumbai and Delhi contribute more than half of its sales. Southern region as a whole contributed about 25 per cent to the overall India sales.
At its assembly unit at Chakan near Pune, Fitz said, Mercedes-Benz removed the production bottlenecks that created distribution constraints in the past.
After the completion of the Rs 250 crore capacity expansion project at the unit, Mercedes will be able to ramp up production of its assembled cars to 20,000 units from the present 10,000.
Fitz said that for increasing sales of pre-owned cars in India, Mercedes-Benz would announce a plan shortly.