Volkswagen plans to expand heavily in the Indian market, targeting sales of 1 million units through its group of companies by 2018. Lately Volkswagen has seen a gradual decline in sales with the Vento feeling the Fluidic heat caused by the Hyundai Verna. But Volkswagen will not fight back by cutting prices, instead the German automaker will focus on increasing its customer touch points and offering CNG variants of its cars. The petrol powered vehicles are being offered with freebies worth Rs. 50,000/- but this is not how VW will be able to sustain in the long run. The company needs new products, tailor made for the Indian market and what better than to offer SUVs.
Volkswagen is said to be developing two different SUVs, which will be offered in segments VW has no presence yet. One of these is a compact SUV based on the next generation Polo platform (MQB), which will rival none other than Ford Kuga and Mahindra XUV500. The Polo based SUV will be different than the cross Polo, which is similar to the Skoda Fabia Scout. The other SUV will be even more compact and will be based on the Up! platform. Again it won’t resemble the Cross Up! but might borrow some cues from it. The Up! based SUV will have the Ford EcoSport and Renault Duster in firm sight.
It is not just India, but worldwide where the market demand is shifting towards SUVs. Case in point is the Lamborghini Urus, Bentley EXP 9 F at the high end of the market and the Opel Mokka, Ford EcoSport on the lower end of the market. India loves SUVs more than anything and the success of the Mahindra XUV500 is just testimony to that. These two compact SUVs from Volkswagen will help the German automaker in boosting volumes in the but don’t get too excited as a market launch is not anytime before 2015.
