General Motors, the world's largest carmaker, is planning to corner a 10 per cent share of the Indian car market in the next three years, with at least two new launches every year, including a small car.
"A 10 per cent market share by 2007-08 would mean increasing our sales from 40,000 cars to nearly 160,000, and we realise that having a mini car in our portfolio is going to be pivotal in achieving the target," said Rajeev Chaba, the newly appointed CEO of General Motors India, who takes over on June 1 from Aditya Vij.
Elaborating on the company's plans for the small car segment, Chaba said GMI would consider buying out Daewoo India's assets in Surajpur after Arcel, the special purpose vehicle created for the sale, takes a decision.
"Daewoo India's creditors have offloaded their non-performing assets to the SPV and we are told that a decision would be taken within a few weeks," said Chaba.
He added that GM was still interested in the Daewoo plant, but the deterioration of assets over the last two years has made it a less attractive proposition.
"If the deal does not work out, we have greenfield and brownfield options available," he said.
Chaba said that despite the problems that GM was facing in the North American market, the company was totally committed to expand its base in India.
"GM looks at India as a very important and strategic base. GM has placed auto components orders worth $120 million with its vendors here and the target in the next five years is to take it up to $1 billion," explained Chaba. The company is also planning to double the headcount at its R&D centre in Bangalore to 100 this year.
GMI had recently increased the capacity of its plant in Hallol, in Gujarat to 60,000 units and the company said that further investments have been made to take up the capacity to 80,000 by June next year.
"My target is to introduce two new line of cars every year, and in the automobile industry putting up a new line costs between Rs 100 to Rs 150 crore (Rs 1 to 1.5 billion)," he said.
