GM plans to ride on Captiva, Spark to clock 20% growth

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New Delhi, Nov 14: At a time when the domestic automobile industry has scaled down the growth projections from 10-12% earlier to 5-6% now, General Motors India is betting big on the success of Spark and Captiva, eyeing a 20% growth in this calendar year.

Though this is lower than 26-27% growth estimated by the company earlier, the figure is robust considering the domestic passenger car industry witnessing a dip of 6.6% in October at 98,900 units. It was the highest dip in almost three years, as against 1,05,877 units during the same month last year. The automobile industry growth dec-lined to an eight-year low of 14.4% at 8,65,404 units vis-à-vis 10,11,221 units in October 2007.

“From Spark to Captiva, we have a strong product portfolio in India. The company has also realigned its distribution network and spread to towns where cash-rich people have high propensity to purchase. This is giving us good growth,” said Karl Slym, General motors (India) president and managing director while speaking at the company’s tie-up with BPCL for expanding its service network.

According to Slym, the financial turmoil in developed countries like the US and Europe has actually spelled an opportunity for developing countries like India. “The drastic dip in demand in emerged economies will ensure that General Motors will shift its focus on emerging countries, especially the Bric nations where penetration level is far less than

US,” he says. While North America has 850 car per 1,000 people, it’s 18 per 1,000 in China and just nine per 1,000 people in India.

After the company’s second plant at Talegaon went operational in September, the company has an installed capacity of 3,80,000 units till 2010. While, the company has set a target of 2,00,000 units for the domestic market, it might eventually look at exports from India.