German luxury car maker BMW plans to launch 25 new products in India this year across its three brands of BMW, MINI and Motorrad, as it looks to recover sales at a much higher pace this year after the pandemic hit year 2020.
“We enter into 2021 with positivity...our strategy of launching even more fantastic products continues. Across the three brands of BMW, MINI and Motorrad, we aim to launch 25 exciting products this year. That's a big number...almost two products a month on an average,” Vikram Pawah, President, BMW Group India told The Hindu.
While the majority of 15 new products will be from the BMW brand, MINI and Motorrad will launch five products each.
The company on Thursday launched the new BMW 3 Series Gran Limousine with prices starting at ₹51.50 lakh onwards. The BMW 3 Series Gran Limousine will be produced at the BMW Group Plant in Chennai exclusively for the Indian market. “This car is unique to India. India is the only market that produces and sells this car in the right-hand drive version. The only other market that produces the 3 series long wheelbase is China, but that is a left-hand drive version... so this clearly indicates intention and investment in India that we want to provide a product that is suitable for the Indian market to be produced in India for local consumption in India,” Mr. Pawah said.
Asked about the expectations from the upcoming Budget, he added that the focus of the Budget needs to be on bouncing back the Indian economy. “If the economy grows, the entire nation benefits from that, but how to get there is the key. I think as auto industry, we are one of the big contributors of the GDP growth...So I think we can prime the Indian economy much faster if a proper stimulus is provided for recovery of the sector.”
Mr. Pawah said that at a time when people are preferring personal mobility, a stimulus or an incentive to buy more cars from the government could be a “ perfect match”.
