BMW to Invest ₹ 130 crore In India to Rev up Operations

26 June 2017

German luxury carmaker BMW is investing another Rs 130 crore in India to enhance operations, taking its total investment in the country to Rs 1,250 crore. The company will launch new version of its locally manufactured 5 Series later this month and 6 Series Gran Turismo (GT) model next year to strengthen its product portfolio in India.

“Since 2007, we have been consistently investing in India. This year, we are going to increase our investment further to up to Rs 1,250 crore on a cumulative basis,” BMW India President Vikram Pawah told. BMW has invested Rs 1,120 crore in the Indian operations so far. The new investment will go into BMW group operations, including Motarrad (two-wheeler business) as well as the financial services arm, he added.

With the fresh investments, the total investments on BMW group operations in India will go up to Rs 520 crore and on BMW Financial Services to Rs 730 crore. The company is looking to expand its dealer network in the country. It currently has 18 partners and is present in 30 cities.

“Besides, we have 63 touch points. Out of these, we have 41 sales outlets. So we want to take these 41 outlets to 50 by 2018,” Pawah said. In other emerging towns, in addition to 30 major cities, the company utilises its ‘Mobile Studios’ to expand the market further. This year, the weather proof BMW mobile studio will cover 50 towns, Pawah said. On new product launches, he said: “As part of our power to lead strategy, product offensive starts. In next two weeks, we will be launching the new 5 Series.”

Pawah further said the company would be focusing on its power to lead strategy to grow the entire premium car market. “The idea is to grow the segment. Currently in India, premium car segment remains less than 2 per cent of the total passenger vehicle market (3 million last fiscal) as compared to 5-10 per cent in various countries,” Pawah said.

Source: NDTV