More fresh products, localisation VW's top priority in India

Mumbai, Feb 26 (PTI) German auto major Volkswagen is working to bring more feature-packed fresh products every year to India while revving up localisation instead of trying to compete in the highly competitive mass market segment.

Having learnt lessons in the past decade of its presence in the country, the world's largest automaker has undertaken a course correction and is working to establish itself as the most preferred 'affordable premium brand' in India.

"We have been here (in India) for ten years now as a brand but we are still in the learning phase. Some of the assumptions that we took in the early days when we came then with Vento and Polo, they have proved to be not 100 per cent right," Volkswagen Group Sales India, Director VW Passenger Cars, Michael Mayer told PTI.

He said the company had much higher expectations of growth of the market but that did not happen in 2011-13 and that "fairly dampened" the plans.

Giving an idea of the challenges here, Mayer said the tag of the "world's largest car manufacturer and Europe's biggest car manufacturer becomes pointless when it comes to understanding and performing as brand and establishing as a brand in the Indian market. It has got structure and characteristics of its own."

Asked what the company has learnt from the experience, Mayer said: "One of the learnings is that Indian consumers are driven by newness.

"If you don't change your products constantly and provide a reason to buy this year's version compared to last year's version, which has to be visible to the customer, you are basically out. So that's what we have changed." Citing the features in the company's compact sedan Ameo such as the rear view camera, auto dimming mirror and automatic gearbox, he said VW has been able to deliver what Indian customers at that segment aspire for in their cars.

"We are now there with the Indian customers, which was probably not the case in the early years, when we had the understated approach of Volkswagen all through," Mayer reflected.

The second thing is localisation, he said.

"You have to drive localisation in order to be able to compete in the aggressive commercial climate in India. We are doing a lot behind the scenes with our factory and our local engineering. So, that will drive a lot of our future products decisions. We have to be very much Indianised in order to be competitive," Mayer said.

VW constantly reviews the content of each car and every quarter it is "driving up new localised content with our suppliers and try to get that into other product lines," he added.