Daewoo drops 2 Matiz variants, puts off Nubira launch

Daewoo Motors India Limited has discontinued production of two top-end versions of its popular small car Matiz and replaced them with new lower priced models, featuring power-steering as standard feature.

The company has also decided to put off its foray into the luxury car segment till the restructuring exercise of its parent company -- Daewoo Motor Company -- is finalised, DMIL chairman Shiv Gopal Awasthi told newspersons in New Delhi on Thursday. Daewoo had earlier announced plans to launch Nubira-II in India in November this year, sporting a Rs 1.1-million price tag.

The company has discontinued production of the SE and SP versions of Matiz, and replaced them with SG, priced at Rs 343,000, and SA at Rs 395,000 (ex-showroom Delhi).

''We have removed certain features like music system, rear window defogger and power windows from the SE model and introduced a power-steering and also trimmed the price tag to Rs 343,000 for the SG version,'' he said. The SE variants used to be priced at Rs 374,000.

Though the SA variant includes power steering and anti-theft system in addition to the existing features of SP, the company has left the price tag unchanged at Rs 395,000.

The price rationalisation has been effected on the strength of the cost-cutting and restructuring exercise that the company had undertaken.

''We have undertaken an organisation restructuring by combining several departments, in addition to cutting vendor margins and sourcing components at lower prices in order to cut costs. These have helped us to offset the impact of rupee devaluation and appreciation of Korean won,'' Awasthi said.

The Matiz SG variant has been priced Rs 67,000 lower than Wagon-R, Rs 75,000 lower than Indica, Rs 49,000 below Zen VX and Rs 38,000 under Santro LS.

The launch of the two new versions of Matiz is part of the company's continuous value-addition programme, Awasthi said.

The launch coincides with a new brand campaign -- Total Spice, an acronym for safety, power, innovation, comfort and economy.

DMIL, Awasthi said, will meet the target of selling 80,000 cars this fiscal. The company is also bullish on the export performance with the small car. It has already exported 1,350 units of Matiz in the first four months of the fiscal, which is higher than the 1,200 units exported in the whole of previous fiscal.

Regarding plans to introduce a luxury car in India, Awasthi said that the exercise would be initiated next year after the restructuring of the parent company will be completed. Ford had last week finished the due-diligence of Daewoo's Indian operations as part of the exercise to purchase the beleaguered Korean carmaker.

The company, he said, has also not finalised a timeframe for infusing fresh equity worth $100 million into the Indian operation. ''We had sought approval from the government and shareholders for infusing fresh equity. But the money would flow in only when required.''

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