Luxury carmaker, Mercedes Benz, which sold 3,625 cars in India in 2008, seems to be having a bumpy ride this year. For one, the worlds largest luxury carmaker BMW has dislodged Mercedes Benz from the No. 1 slot of the Indian luxury car market in the first two months of 2009. Wilfred G Aulbur, managing director and CEO of Mercedes Benz India, says, The current year is quite challenging for us. We sold 20-30 units in the first two months of the current year. Economic slowdown coupled with liquidity crunch will remain the main issues of concern.
To attract more customers the company plans to pump in Rs 150 crore in 2009-10 to upgrade its existing facilities in Delhi, Chandigarh, and Hyderabad. The automaker will also keep on offering attractive deals and schemes to woo new customers.
We hope the things will start looking up in the second half of this year, said Dr Aulbur. The general elections will be over by that time. We are quite optimistic to achieve the target set for the year 2009. However, he declined to divulge the sales target of 2009.
The year 2008 proved quite fruitful for the luxury carmaker as the companys national sales grew 47% over the previous year. The market of Punjab contributed significantly to the sales of the companywhen it grew 48%.
The company sold 276 cars in this region (Chandigarh and part of Haryana) last year (Jan-December) as compared to 175 units it sold the previous year.
Aulbur was in Ludhiana to launch its popular SUV the M-Class in the city.
The new M-Class is available in two engine choicesthe ML 320 CDI (featuring a high-torque diesel engine) and the ML 350 (powered by a high output gasoline engine).
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