The company, which has been making news with its study of the Indian car and utility vehicle market for customer satisfaction and quality ever since 1997, will announce the `sales satisfaction index (SSI)' in the second half of 2000, a senior company official said here.

"SSI will focus specifically on the process of gathering information by the customer from salesmen at the time of buying a new vehicle and finalising the deal," JD Power and Associates director (international operations), James D Power IV, said at the Auto Expo here.

The company is also planning to open an office in India to focus on the growing automobile market here.

"We are confident about the Indian auto market and the country with its well-knowledgable, large educated population surely has a bright future," he commented.

"We haveworked with all the car companies in India andI believe we enjoy the respect of all these companies," he added.

Power said the company had been working in the field of market information since 1968 and the recent reports on the Indian auto sector mean that it is a `kid' in the Indian market.

"We are experts in measuring customer satisfaction as we have been working in 30 countries and able to change the way companies look at their customers in auto-markets," Power said.

JD Power recently published three indices related to Indian automobile industry namely Customer Satisfaction Index (CIS), Initial Quality Study (IQS) and Automotive, Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL).