Fiat’s Pune plant to become export hub

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Roudra Bhattacharya: New Delhi, Jan 16 2013, 00:43 IST

Adopting the export strategy of rivals Hyundai, Maruti Suzuki and Nissan-Renault, Italy’s top automaker Fiat is planning to make its Ranjangaon plant near Pune a global hub to build cars for the UK, Japan and Australia. The move will give Fiat economies of scale at a time of flagging domestic volumes. The export strategy also makes sense since the utilisation level of this plant, which has an annual capacity of 1.35 lakh cars, is around 50%.

Enrico Atanasio, MD of Fiat Group Automobiles India, said: “There are cars being developed specifically with India in mind and the idea is to make the country a hub for right-hand drive markets. We can export to major markets like the UK, Japan and Australia and many nations in Africa.” He added that India was expected to emerge as the third-largest car market globally in three years, after China and the US. “We believe this market has huge potential. There is very little to cross Brazil and Russia in sales and Japan is in a bad shape. We are currently using less than 1 lakh capacity at Ranjangaon and can expand to 1.80 lakh units a year when we launch new products,” he said.

Fiat is planning to launch two brands in India this year — American SUV Jeep and racing division Abarth. A market study is on for introducing other brands like Fiat Commercial (LCVs), Alfa Romeo (sports cars) and Chrysler (premium cars) at competitive prices. Nine new products are expected over the next three

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