Mercedes Mulls Launch Of A-Class Small Car

Mercedes-Benz India is contemplating launch of its A-class in India. A market survey will be conducted to gauge the potential for its small car. The survey team is expected to begin work in this regard by May next.

If the outcome of the survey is encouraging price and volume-wise, then we will bring our small car to India, said Thomas Weigand, vice-president, sales, marketing and after-sales of Mercedes-Benz India. Initially, he said, the company will not harp on volumes as it expects things to pick up on this front only over a period of time. But price will be an important criterion, he stated.

 

It is a good car, but we have to see the market potential and if the response is good, we will produce the car at our new facility which is under construction at Chikhli (near here), Weigand said.

However, he said that the entire process of rolling out the A-class car will take around one-and-a-half years, if it decides to produce it at Chikhli. The new production facility of Mercedes-Benz India at Chikhli is being designed to enable it to produce both the new E-class and A-class cars.

The Chikhli facility is scheduled to be ready by October 1998 and the entire equipment and machinery of the company will be shifted there from the existing premises of Telco in Pimpri here. Mercedes-Benz has already started producing its new E-Class of petrol and diesel cars at its Pimpri facility following the phaseout of the old W124 model.

The company at present produces an average of 4 cars per day. The car was launched countrywide on February 1 through eleven sales and service dealers.

In 1997, Mercedes-Benz India sold 2,300 luxury cars as against 1,700 cars in 1996. The companys sales in 1997 were mainly export-driven with only 800 cars being sold in the domestic market as against 1,700 cars sold in the domestic market and only 3 exported in 1996.

Weigand is confident of putting up a better show in 1998.