BMW to launch 2 important cars in India soon: Official

     Raipur, February 04, 2013: International luxury car maker BMW would launch two important cars in India soon.

     “On February 14, next we will launch BMW X1 (X-One) Series and the BMW 7-Series in March,” Director Press and Corporate Affairs of BMW Group India Abhay Dange told ChhattisgarhTopNews.Com here.

      The Company would also start producing BMW 1-Series and 7-Series from Chennai plant, which was currently producing BMW 3 Series, 5 Series, X1 and X3, he said.

     “Indian market is very important to us,” said President of BMW Group India, Philipp von Sahr.

     “Economy of some of the countries like South Europe has problems. And we can compensate that from Asia. That’s why it is important to be stronger in India, China and Russia,” Sahr also told ChhattisgarhTopNews.Com.

     Both were here for inauguration of BMW Raipur Showroom Munich Motors.

     Was that a reason why BMW wanted to go aggressively, when asked, Sahr said China, Russia and India are extremely growing markets, although they are different in attitude.

     “In Russia, we sell a lot of big cars and not the small one. Where as in India 80 per cent of our cars are of diesel engine.”

     And in China, the demand was of long and stretched cars looking into the long traffic in Shanghai and couple of other places, the BMW Group India President said.

     Meanwhile, the Company announced at Raipur to expand to 50 major cities of India with its sales outlet.

     “By the end of 2014, BMW India will aggressively expand its dealer network by increasing the number of sales outlets to 50 across major metropolitan centres and emerging marketers in India from the current 34 at present,” Sahr said.

     BMW India was committed towards the development of BMW dealer network of international standards at all important commercial centres across the country, Sahr said adding the Raipur showroom was based on the “Urban Street Display” concept, which is a signature of BMW layout.

     To a question, he said the BMW group has so far invested 1.8 billion Indian rupees, with activities included establishment of a production plant in Chennai and a parts warehouse in Mumbai.

     As a global company, the BMW Group operates 29 production and assembly facilities in 14 countries and has a global sales network in more than 140 countries, Sahr said.

     In 2012, the BMW Group sold about 1.85 million cars and more than 117,000 motorcycles worldwide. The profit before tax for the financial year 2011 was euro 7.38 billion on revenues amounting to euro 68.82 billion, he added.

     At December 31, 2011, the BMW group had a workforce of approximately 100,000 employees worldwide and currently the Chennai plant has about 650 employees, to produce 11,000 cars.