Great Wall Motors’ India Entry Purported To Be Back On Track

Great Wall Motors’ India entry is seemingly back on track after the plan was put on the back burner for a year due to COVID-19 and FDI approval-related delays.

While China’s largest SUV brand earlier had plans to enter India with all guns blazing, it has changed its mind now. Adopting a top-down approach, Great Wall will initially focus on importing Completely Built-Up (CBU) units and completely knocked down (CKD) kits to India.

Instead of launching a range of SUVs, Great Wall has set its eyes upon entering the D-segment SUV category, while a smaller B-segment electric hatchback or SUV (MG ZS EV competitor) is also being considered for market launch.

The Great Wall India entry plan was revised due to the ongoing geopolitical tensions between India and China. This could also mean India will lose out on becoming one of Great Wall Motors’ largest export bases which is expected to be assumed by either Russia or Thailand.

In order to set itself apart from established competitors in the Indian market, the Chinese SUV brand will focus on electric, hybrid and hydrogen fuel cell tech.

Thus, the brand’s flagship SUV, which will be launched under the Haval brand, is likely to be offered with a hybrid powertrain. On the other hand, the smaller fully-electric product could be launched under its ORA brand.

With the Great Wall India entry plans back on track, the firm’s president of Indian operations has made a trip to India along with a production engineering team to rollout the brand’s revised plan.

To this end, the Chinese auto major has restarted its recruitment drive to build the leadership team across fields such as dealer development, marketing, sales, among others.

As things stand, Great Wall hopes to get FDI clearance from the government within the first quarter of the current fiscal year, only months before the expiry of a term sheet it signed with General Motors to acquire the latter’s Talegaon facility.

Source – ETAuto.com