General Motors (GM) India Limited plans to export Beat, its compact car to Europe and countries in the Asia Pacific region, from January 2011.
Sumit Sawhney, director (sales), GM India said, “Twenty per cent of Beat manufactured in India will be exported to Europe and nations in the Asia Pacific region. The export of the compact car will start from January 2011.”
GM India which clocked a sales volume of around 70,000 across all its models in the country in 2009, has set a target of breaching the one lakh mark in 2010.
The surge in sales is expected to come on the back of new product launches, especially Beat which is going to be the key sales driver.
“Besides Beat, we will roll out four new products in this calendar year. These include the Aveo Cruz (sedan), Extreme Captiva (multi-utility vehicle), automatic version of the existing Cruz sedan and e-Spark, the electric version of Spark”, Karl Slym, president and managing director, GM India told reporters here at the launch of Beat.
The e-Spark will be available by the end of this year. The automaker has entered into technical collaboration with Bangalore-based Reva Electric Car Company for this product.
GM India also has plans to roll out Light Commercial Vehicles (LCVs) in 2011, said Slym.
The Beat will be produced at GM India's manufacturing facility at Talegaon. The company's power train facility, for manufacturing engine and transmission parts at the same location, is set to be operational by the end of this year. Beat is available in three variants- Beat PS, Beat LS and Beat LT priced at Rs 3.41 lakh, Rs 3.61 lakh and Rs 4.02 lakh (ex-showroom Bhubaneswar) respectively. This introductory price for this compact car is valid for 60 days. The Beat has been competitively priced to take competition head on with other cars in the segment like Maruti Ritz and Hyundai i10.
Asked if rising input costs would prompt GM India to revise upwards the price of Beat, Slym said, “There has been a steep rise in input cost like steel, aluminium and rubber and this has put pressure on the automakers. We will try to absorb the rising costs to the best possible extent and raise prices only when it is unavoidable”
Slym scotched market speculation that GM India was working on a stripped down version of its Spark model.
In the eastern region, GM India plans to sell 600 units of Beat every month out of which 80 units are expected to be sold in Orissa.
Presently, the automaker sells 190 units across all its models in the state and the sales figure is set to go up to 270 per month following the launch of the Beat.
