Tata Motors-owned Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is mulling introducing smaller luxury sedans and sports utility vehicles (SUVs) to strengthen and consolidate its presence in the luxury car market in India, which is dominated by the German trio BMW, Audi and Mercedes Benz.
Rohit Suri, vice-president, JLR India, said: "The segment where the German players dominate have products priced around Rs 25 lakh. We are looking at smaller categories of vehicles and these products are at initial planning stages." Currently, Land Rover Freelander2 is the cheapest product JLR has on offer in India tagged between Rs 34.40 lakh and Rs 40 lakh.
Luxury carmakers have started gaining a bulk of their sales from entry-level models in recent times. While BMW XI (Rs 24.50 lakh) contributed nearly a quarter to the sales of the company till October this year, Audi sold out its allotment of 1000 Q3s (Rs 27.21 lakh) for 2012 within three months of launch. To cash in on the growth potential entry-level products offer BMW has now lined up for launch the 1 series compact car in India end 2013. Mercedes too is scheduled to bring it’s a Class compact car next year.
JLR too - which recently embarked on its most ambitious product development programme to put on road 40 new products by over the next 4-5 year - is now exploring options to capitalise on the growth potential in entry-level luxury car segment. Global Range Rover Brand Manger Scott Dicken while declining to share details of how many smaller products the company is looking at adding on to its portfolio under the programme said, "When the industry is gradually downsizing in terms of vehicle's powertrain and other specification, we cannot avoid it and we are looking at all options."
The product introductions will be backed by aggressive network expansion (particularly in tier-II cities) with the number of dealerships increasing to 25 from the present 15 by the end of 2013-14.
The company is additionally exploring options to assemble more products to offer them at competitive price points in the Indian market. "We are looking at more models to be assembled in India. We are conducting a study to find which model will make a business sense," added Suri. The Evoque is one of the models being considered for assembly in the country. At present, JLR assembles only the Freelander2 at Tata Motors facility in Pimpri.
JLR today launched its all new version of sports utility vehicle Range Rover with price starting from Rs 1.72 crore (ex-showroom Delhi). Depending on specifications and variants the price of the new Range Rover can go up to Rs 1.9 crore. The vehicle will be available in both petrol and diesel options. While the petrol version will be powered by a 5 litre V8 engine, the diesel one will have a 4.4 litre V8 engine.
JLR, with a market share of around 8%, sold 1,243 units in the luxury car market in India between April and October this fiscal. The company’s German counterparts BMW, Audi, Mercedes Benz and Volkswagen accounted for the remaining 14,093 units sold in the country during the same period.