Volkswagen to increase market share to 20 per cent by 2018

CHANDIGARH - Volkswagen is eyeing to capture 20 per cent share of the Indian automobile market by 2018, rolling out five million cars, a company official said Wednesday.

Our current market share in India is 2.6 per cent and we are looking up to increase it to at least 20 per cent by 2018. According to our company estimations we have plans to roll out five million cars in India by 2018, said Dietmar Hildebrandt, director (group service), National Sales Corporation, Volkswagen India Private Limited, here.

Dietmar was here to sign a memorandum of understanding with a Punjab-based educational group.

“We are very serious about Indian market and so far the response from here is quite encouraging. We have many more plans that we will execute in the coming years. We are intending to produce those variants and models that our Indian customers are looking for. Punjab is also a very good market for high-end cars for us,” said Dietmar.

About the sales of the newly launched Polo car, Dietmar said: “I am not very sure about the exact figures but on the basis of recent reports over 15,000 polo cars were sold.”

He said the company wants to establish a strong dealer-network. “Currently we have 150 dealerships across the country. In the next eight years, we have plans to increase this number to 1,000. Our business in India is growing at good pace and we will hire around 3000 more technicians in our plants in the next five years.

Volkswagen India, headquartered in Pune, Maharashtra, is represented by three brands in India: Volkswagen, Audi and Skoda.