With local assembly at plant near Bengaluru, Volvo plans to double its market share to 10 percent by the end of this decade
Volvo Cars has rolled out its first assembled car, the flagship XC90, today from its plant in Bengaluru. A few months ago the Swedish luxury car maker announced that it would begin assembling operations in India this year as the market shows great long-term potential due to the expanding luxury segment. Volvo believes the decision to assemble its cars locally has enabled a strong base to achieve 10 percent segment share by the end of this decade.
Located near Bengaluru, the assembly operations will be focussing on the vehicles based on the brand’s flexible SPA modular vehicle architecture. Besides the XC90, Volvo is planning to put together more models on the same platform as further announcements are expected at a later time. For the assembly operations, the car division of Volvo is working closely with Volvo Group India, the commercial vehicle, construction equipment and Penta engines manufacturer, as it is utilising the existing infrastructure and production licenses.
The decision to assemble cars locally comes as a result of the Gothenburg headquartered brand encountering increased market share and popularity in the last three years. With new dealer appointments, the footprint of the brand is also expected to grow larger for even bigger achievements in the country. Volvo Cars’ new plans reflect on the ‘Make in India’ initiative and it will benefits the descending customers.
According to the brand, amidst the domestic luxury market still being relatively small, it is forecasting to grow rapidly in the coming years. The Geely-owned company currently has a segment share of about 5 percent and is aiming to double this up by 2020.
It has had a robust 32 percent growth in sales volumes in the past two years and this year the trend is as per planned to achieve 2,000 cars as it will witness a YoY growth of 25 percent. Volvo sells ten products in the country with the next expected launches being the highly promising next-gen XC60 towards the end of 2017 and the smaller XC40 sometime next year.