French car company Peugeot has set its eyes on the Indian car market and plans to enter here by 2018. The car maker plans to get into a partnership with an Indian company to start its new foray in the sub-continent.
Peugeot, which is expected to make India its manufacturing base for domestic and export markets, is likely to launch its products before the end of 2021.
Peugeot's Indian entry is considered as a part of the company’s aggressive ‘Push to Pass’ growth plan for the period 2016-2021. In 2014, the French carmaker formed a new ‘India-Pacific’ business zone comprising India, SAARC countries, Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand. The company is looking at launching only new generation cars in India and not those which are at the end of their production cycles.
For its Indian venture, the automaker wants to focus on frugal research expenditure and rigorous control over production costs as well as fixed costs in the price sensitive Indian market. Peugeot wants to reach an average of four percent recurring operating margin in 2016-2018, and target six percent by 2021. It wants to establish itself as a big brand and accordingly plans a blitzkrieg of products from its global range, notably the plug-in hybrid cars and autonomous connected vehicles.
This will be Peugeot's second entry into the sub-continent. In its first innings in India, which ended late 1997, the company had partnered with Premier Automobiles.
Source : BS Motoring