The Japanese luxury car brand, Lexus owned by Toyota is officially confirmed to be making in presence felt in India by 2013. Toyota was in the process of carrying out a feasibility study of the potential and market value of the Lexus luxury brand in India for several years and has finally decided to bring it to India. The Lexus cars will be sold through dedicated dealerships in India. However, the existing Toyota dealers may likely take up the franchisee of the Lexus dealership too in order to take advantage of the service setup that requires common equipment for both the brands.
“We have been watching India with keen interest and we are happy to announce that we will bring Lexus to India in 2013. “We would rather have a few, quality dealerships than a large number of mediocre outlets,” Yukitoshi Funo, executive vice-president, Toyota Motor Corporation, said.
However, Toyota will be very particular in choosing the dealers for its Lexus brand and will be taking a cautious and diligent approach. Last month, Mr. Kazuo Ohara, the person who oversees the Lexus brand globally paid a visit to India and was involved in the extensive market research that included studying the dealer and service outlets. Toyota with its Lexus brand will be following the top-down approach like its German rivals Audi and BMW. The first Lexus models to come to India will be the LS saloon and the RX SUV. These will be followed by the GS executive luxury saloon will be directly competing with the E class and the 5 series. Initially these models will be brought to India as CBU imports. However, Toyota has plans to locally assemble these in case the market demands so. It is very likely that the Lexus IS series will be locally assembled in India. Toyota claims to have got an overwhelming response to the initial market survey that was carried out and it was much better than their anticipation. However, the challenges for the Lexus brand in India would be pricing its product appropriately and the lack of diesel powertrains.
Source – Autocar India
