B&E: The luxury car market is growing appreciably in India. How are luxury car makers like BMW planning to tap this opportunity? Philipp Von Sahr (PVS): The Indian luxury car market has immense potential with the rising purchasing power of consumers, their growing aspirations for luxury brands and evolving lifestyles. We foresee an exuberant growth potential for the luxury car segment in India. With a carefully planned and successfully executed market entry strategy, and consistent sales performance, BMW India has achieved market leadership in the luxury car segment. Indian consumers associate the BMW brand with authentic luxury products, which are distinguished by their emotional appeal, uncompromising engineering, innovative technology and outstanding quality.As we move into the future, we are well positioned with a forward-looking strategy, progressive roadmap along with an exciting and emotional portfolio to tap the available market opportunities.
B&E: What kinds of price and product innovations luxury car makers need to bring to an emerging luxury market like India? PVS: As far as BMW India is concerned, we are well positioned in the Indian market with the most desirable product portfolio across each price segment in the luxury car market. We have recently launched the innovative BMW Mobile Showrooms to provide our customers in India an opportunity to experience the BMW brand, test drive vehicles, interact with product experts and avail promotional and financial offers from BMW Financial Services. Covering seven states, the BMW Mobile Showroom will visit Karnal (Haryana), Agra (Uttar Pradesh), Dehradun (Uttarakhand), Jamshedpur (Jharkhand), Patna (Bihar), Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh), and Nashik (Maharashtra).
In terms of our product portfolio, BMW has been the pioneer in creating new vehicle segments. The Sports Activity Vehicle (SAV) was created by BMW. We further redefined the Sports Activity Vehicle segment with the launch of BMW X1. The launch of BMW X1 has set a benchmark, bringing together features of a Sports Activity Vehicle with spontaneous flexibility and outstanding fuel economy. The BMW 3 Series has been the undisputed premium sedan since its inception. And the recently launched sixth-generation of the BMW 3 Series will surpass the success that its predecessors received. The 5 Series is the core model in our product portfolio and is the world’s most popular premium executive sedan.
B&E: Can we expect to see BMW launching new products in the premium sedan segment? PVS: We have plans to launch an aggressive product offensive in Q1 2013, covering all the opportunities in the Indian luxury car segment.
B&E: How many dealerships you have currently and what are your expansion plans? PVS: Currently, BMW India has 25 sales outlets in the Indian market. We plan to aggressively expand our dealer network by increasing the number of sales outlets to 40 across major metropolitan centers and emerging markets in India.
