New Delhi, May 7: In an aggressive bid to double its
sales and garner 20 per cent market share in India, Skoda auto
will launch seven models and variants in the next one year, a
top company official today said.
"We plan to launch one more car in early 2006," Skoda
auto India general manager (sales and marketing) Bipin Datar
said..
"We have lined up a slew of models as we aim to have 20
per cent market share in the segments we operate. We also plan
to sell 8,500 cars this year," he said.
The Indian arm of the Volkswagen group company will
launch luxury sedan 'Superb' by may-end, 'Octavia rider' in
the first week of next month, 1.8 litre turbo petrol version
of premium sedan 'Octavia' by the end of July, 'Octavia'
diesel automatic in August and premium sedan 'Fabia' in the
first quarter next year.
The company also plans to launch compact passenger
vehicle 'Roomster' by 2006.
The Czech carmaker's Indian arm sold 4,656 units last
year, Datar said. "But we suffered five months of production
loss as we were shifting our production base to completely
knocked down (CKD) operations from Semi Knocked Down (SKD)."
Skoda auto India has sold 100 units of premium sedan
'Laurin & Klement' in the last 10 days and targets to sell 800
'L&Ks' by December this year.
"We have received tremendous response for 'L&K'. After
selling 100 units in 10 days, we have scaled up our target to
800 units in 2004. We have to slightly delay the 'Fabia'
launch as our hands are full because of the enthusiastic
response to 'L&K'," Datar said.
Bureau Report
