Within five months of its launch, General Motor India on Tuesday rolled out a 1.6-litre model of its premium mid-size sedan Chevrolet Optra as part of strategy to double sales to 30,000 units next year.
The base version of the 1.6-litre Optra has been priced at Rs 7.29 lakh (Rs 729,000), while the luxury 'LS' model would cost Rs 7.89 lakh (Rs 789,000) -- ex-showroom, Delhi.
This was stated by GMI president Aditya Vij.
GMI, a wholly owned subsidiary of US-based General Motors Corp., had launched the Optra with a 1.8 litre engine in July 2003 and clocked sales of over 4,000 units till now.
GMI vice president (marketing) Amit Dutta said the new car is expected to help the company boost its market share in the overall mid-size segment to 30-35 per cent next year from the present 23 per cent in the upper-end mid-size segment.
The 1.6-litre Optra, which has 104 brake horse power, would compete with cars like Honda City and Hyundai Accent Tornado in the segment which accounts for about 100,000 units annually.
The 1.8-litre model is positioned against cars like Toyota Corolla and Skoda Octavia in the upper-end of the mid-size segment, which are about 16,000 units annually.
Dutta said GMI plans to introduce a new multi-utility vehicle Isuzu Panther, rechristened as Chevrolet Tavera, by September 2004, which it hopes would double its market share to 2.4 per cent next year in the total Indian automobile industry of over 1.5 million vehicles.
General Motors Asia-Pacific director (media relations) Jay Cooney said that India was one of the 'critical' markets for the company and new models would be continuously introduced to increase its presence in the domestic market.
"India will play an ever-increasing role in the GM family. GM will remain focused and continue to introduce new products in India," Cooney said, but did not give details.
He identified China, Australia, Japan and South Korea as the other major markets for the US automaker in the region.
Cooney, however, did not say whether the company would enter the high-volume compact car segment with the Daewoo Matiz, which was recently launched in China as the Chevrolet Spark.
General Motors India also produces the Opel range of models at its factory at Halol (Gujarat), which has a production capacity of 25,000 units annually.
This would be doubled to 50,000 units in 2004, for which the company would invest an additional Rs 180 crore (Rs 1.80 billion) over the previous investments of Rs 1,380 crore (Rs 13.80 billion).
GMI also imports and sells the luxury sedan Opel Vectra and sports-utility-vehicle Chevrolet Forester.
Sales of the company surged by 66 per cent to 13,505 units during January-November 2003.
