Swedish commercial vehicle major Scania is pitching itself against global peers Volvo and Mercedes-Benz in the Indian luxury bus segment. The company on Monday announced the inauguration of its manufacturing facility at Narasapura near Bengaluru with an initial annual capacity of 1,000 units. The company will make the Bengaluru facility a hub for exporting to neighbouring markets, including SAARC, Asia and West Asian countries.
“Having received major orders from KSRTC and MSRTC, the company hopes to sell more than 300 such buses in India in 2015,” said Anders Grundstroer, managing director, Scania India Commercial Vehicles. “We will be soon entering the intra-city or the city bus segment,” Anders said.
Addressing mediapersons here, Anders said: “We are launching buses with 100% localisation in body material and 70% localisation in overall bus value. We are pitching ourselves with competitors such as Volvo and Mercedes-Benz in the luxury bus segment in India, which is expected to more than double in the next five years, he said.”We are targeting to sell 2,500 luxury buses by 2020 and 5,000 trucks by the same time period,” he added.
“The company is talking to a number of state transport undertakings as well private players and we hope to clinch new deals soon,’ Anders said, adding the company also hopes to sell 55 ethanol-based city buses to Nagpur Municipal Corporation, and production for the same would start from July onwards.