In order to sustain the growth momentum and to take on competition from its own European and US multinationals, luxury car major Mercedes-Benz has decided to strengthen its portfolio of offerings as well as expand its network across tier-II and tier-IV cities to give customers a choice to select number of products and easy accessibility, said Peter Honegg, MD and CEO of Mercedes-Benz India. The company plans to end the 2011 calender year with a little over 7,000 units as against 5,600 units or so, he added.?We will be soon launching car leasing in India to become a one- stop solutions provider for existing as well as new buyers. We are in talks with insurance players to enable us to offer complete package to regain our lost market share ,?he said.
?Our objective is to tap the huge potential in tier-III & IV cities, which have been witnessing a demand for luxury cars. Given the improved farm productivity, brand equity and increasing purchasing power, we believe that these cities could provide us a needed leg up to increase our sales,? he said, adding ?As the sales volume is growing year after year, cities such as Delhi and Mumbai have been losing their market share to smaller cities and we want to expand our dealers network. We plan to add 10 to 15 dealers a year going forward.? According to him, given the preference for diesel variants, Mercedes has decided to introduce more diesel variants.
On the leasing front, he said, ?We have geared up with the product. We will launch it in the next few weeks and will start with metros like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and then to Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune and Kolkata. With most of our dealers having second hand car sales division called ?Proven Exclusivity?, leasing of cars will help us to tap new customers.?