Volvo Hopes To Sell 100 Buses In 2002

Volvo India Pvt Ltd on Tuesday announced that it plans to sell around 100 units of their recently launched Volvo B7R bus in calendar 2000. The model, which was launched last October, costs around Rs 40 lakh, ex-showroom (Bangalore).

Akash Passey, general manager (bus division), said: "The sales target might look meagre. We would like to concentrate on maintaining quality and offer to customers standardised products". Volvo had already sold 36 units of B7R bus, he said.

He said the company had identified inter-city bus operators and state tourism promotion corporations as their target customers. At present, both these segments, inter-city and tourism corporations, command a market size of 450 units of per annum for air-conditioned buses.

Company officials claimed that the Volvo B7R, which is powered by a 260 hp engine, is around 30-35 per cent costlier than conventional luxury buses and has a life span of 12 years.

Passey said the company will be able to attain full capacity utilisation in the next couple of years because of diverse product offering in trucks, three different model series and nine new application in trucks.

The Volvo factory in India was set up with an initial investment of Rs 300 crore and the factory has an installed capacity to produce 4,000 heavy commercial vehicles per annum.

Meanwhile, the company launched its inter-city, luxury, air-conditioned bus in Chennai. The company hopes to sell around 15 to 20 units in Tamil Nadu in 2002.