Beating rival Mercedes as the numero uno luxury car manufacturer in India last year, BMW is set to increase manufacturing capacity at its Chennai plant as it targets sales exceeding 4,000 units in 2010.
Peter Kronschnabl, President BMW India said, “In 2010, we aim to achieve double digit growth. In absolute numbers we want to achieve sales of over 4,000 units”.
As its sales target is higher than the manufacturing capacity at the Chennai factory, BMW is set to hike output there shortly.
He said, “The Chennai plant has a capacity of 3,000 units per annum. We will also invest more on our plant but the final figure is yet to be fixed. We will soon make some announcement in this regard”.
Last year BMW beat Mercedes as the number one luxury car producer in India having sales of 3,619 units as compared to 3,247 units of Mercedes.
Kronschnabl said “After three and half years in the Indian market we have done reasonably well. Today we have a 41 per cent share in the Indian premium segment market against 9 per cent in 2006 when we started our operations”.
During January and February, BMW sold 709 units in all, reporting an increase of 38% over the equivalent period in 2009. Kronschnabl said further, “We will further invest in the country and also increase our manpower here. We will increase the head count at our Chennai plant by 30 per cent this year from 160 people currently”.
Easy availability of car loans will certainly help the company.