Speaking about the proposed launch, the president of BMW India unit told reporters "Last year we decided to postpone the launch of Mini in India by a year, as we had doubts regarding the viability of the project. We would again take a look at it by the end of the third quarter of the calendar year".The luxury hatchback market was not well developed in India and the investments would be substantial. He said "So we have to re-look at the potential business opportunity before launching it".
Kronschnabl said "BMW sold 1,747 BMWs in the first half of 2009, about a quarter of total Indian luxury car sales of 7,400, and its sales growth of 12 percent was better than the sector's 1.5 percent". He added "We are confident of delivering 3,000 cars to our customers in India in the year 2009."
BMW has increased the annual capacity at its Indian plant from 1,700 to 3,000 units. This was carried out on a single-shift basis at the cost of $750,000. BMW competes with European auto giants like DaimlerChrysler and Volkswagen. It makes the BMW 3 series and BMW 5 series in India and the BMW 7 series is sold by means of imported kits.
As talks about the German car maker being close to signing the agreement with global manufacturers were doing the rounds, Kronschnabl said "All I can say at this moment is that, we are very close to signing contracts with the global manufactures and it should be in place by December 2009."
BMW India has a slew of launches slated for 2009 like the new BMW 3 series, BMW 7 series, and diesel variant of BMW X3. In order to strengthen the dealership network of which presently there are thirteen, BMW will set up new dealerships in ten more cities by the end of 2010. $30 million is the investment it has made for the Indian market including the plant that was set up in Chennai.
