Mahindra & Mahindra, India?s largest utility vehicle maker by sales, is seeking a larger global market share riding on new products and brands from South Korean SUV maker SsangYong Motor Company, which it purchased in March this year. The plan, however, analysts say, is tough against stiff competition and challenging as SsangYong is not yet a formidable brand.

M&M, owned by billionaire Anand Mahindra, has a three-pronged strategy and sees exports increasing by 17% to 20,000 units this financial year from 17,138 units last year. One, beef up sales in 23 countries in Africa, Latin America and Europe, second explore markets in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia and last, push more pick ups which can ferry goods apart from SUVs.

?We have now started getting some kind of scale in overall exports and hope to cross 20,000 units this financial year,? says Pawan Goenka, president – automotive and farm equipment sectors at M&M. ?This is giving us a bit of economies of scale that we start looking at the export markets and investing in them,? Goenka adds.

Analysts say it is not an easy task to compete with established rivals. In South Africa, the Indian company will have to compete with brands such as Toyota Motor which sold 32,000 pick ups and 19,000 SUVs last year. In Brazil, brands such as Kia Motors and Mitsubishi Motors rule the SUV market, and in pick-ups, Fiat is the leader.

?In the automobile industry, in a new market, you have to build your brand and you cannot do so till you have attained substantial volume,? says M&M?s Goenka.?We have reached this level now and would look at building our brand in the export markets.? M&M reported 78% growth in overall exports in the first five months of this year. It exported around 9,955 units in the first five months this year. Goenka is hopeful the trend will continue until this financial year on the back of new launches.

Last week, M&M launched the Genio pick-up, a new Bolero with premium features. XUV5OO was developed after studying the needs of the customers abroad. M&M will start selling the new SUV in African countries and later explore Thailand, Brazil and Chile.

?Brazil is a big SUV market, but attracts high cost of logistics in case of direct imports and making vehicles in Brazil is a challenge as the level of localisation required on vehicles are very high,? says VG Ramakrishnan, senior director, transportation and logistics South Asia, Middle-East and North Africa at consulting firm Frost & Sullivan. In 2008, M&M started assembling its pick-ups and Scorpio SUV in Brazil.

?The low recall value of SsangYong in the export markets will not be of much help,? says Ammar Master, manager at JD Power Asia Pacific, an automotive research firm. ?M&M plans to leverage the large distribution network of SsangYong in the export market for better exposure.?

According to Master, this would be a challenge, since SsangYong itself is struggling to make a mark in the global market. ?We have plans to leverage the large distribution network of SsangYong in the export market to sell more of its products,? Goenka had said after announcing the purchase of the South Korean utility maker.

The company has to be quick to make low carbon emission products to comply with Euro-V vehicle emission norms to sell in Italy, France and eastern Europe.

?M&M has a negligible presence in Europe (Italy and France) and eastern European markets like Serbia due to the absence of products that comply to the Euro-V emission norms,? says Pravin Shah, chief executive – international operations, automotive and farm equipment sectors, M&M. ?Euro-V compliant Scorpio SUV and pick-up version would be launched in the European markets by September, while the Euro-V compliant Genio pick-up will be sold in 2012.?

?Indian products fit well in the African markets,? says an M&M official who declined to be identified as he is not the official spokesperson. ?M&M products are value-for-money and can be seen around doing the toughest off-road jobs in Africa.? According to him, sale of pick-ups is more than SUVs in Africa. M&M plans to build an assembly line in Africa.

?We only have Scorpio pick-ups in Algeria and feel the need of the hour is to have a slew of products for retail,? says Stephane Vielmas, marketing director, North Africa, at Groupe Bernard Hayot, an M&M?s distributor in Algeria. ?With the Genio pick-up in the market, we feel the volumes should grow now.?

West Asia is another market the company is exploring. It has developed a petrol driven Scorpio to launch in Egypt, West Asia, Thailand and southeast Asia.

The journey from Willys Jeep to XUV5OO has been slow as M&M has made more products for the Indian market than for overseas.?This is the first time that M&M is planning to export in a big way,? says JD Power?s Master. ?The company, at the moment, is busy building blocks than de-risking business. The have established themselves in the domestic market, and now are ambitious to become a global SUV player,? he adds.