Thursday, July 1, 2010

Fiat is gearing up to launch its small car in India in 2012

Italian automaker, Fiat, is now desperate to establish itself in the Indian market. After failure of its Uno and not so successful Palio, the company is now looking forward to release a small car that would compete with Maruti’s top selling Alto model in India.

The new car will be positioned below the company’s premium hatchback model, Fiat Grande Punto. The new car will be tailor made to suit the Indian roads and needs of Indian passengers.

Mr. Rajeev Kapoor, MD, Fiat India, said, “It will be an all-new car, nothing to do with any of our other models and will be priced aggressively. It will compete with the Alto and will have a one-litre engine. The Uno brand has become rather generic in nature. We are still figuring out a new brand name for the car. The new car will be an India-specific one, made in India, made for India, keeping in mind the country’s unique terrain and temperatures.”

In order to successfully distribute its models across India, Fiat tied up with Tata Motors which helped it to gain customers’ confidence. The company is now focusing on entry level small cars which make up the majority of the Indian auto market.

There are some major factors for Fiat to consider such as- good service, easy availability of parts and lower production costs. In order to make the cars more competitive, car makers like Tata and Maruti Suzuki, built their cars in Indian manufacturing plants.

The company is happy with the sales figure of its Grande Punto but in order to address the mass, the company needs to have its own small car. It would help Fiat to increase its market share by 1.5%. Though the small car segment is very large, it is highly competitive with major automakers like Ford, Hyundai, Tata, Suzuki has their own small cars.

1 comment:

  1. I didn't realise the Palio hadn't been successful. Obviously, I've never driven one but I did like the look of it. Had some funny ads too. But some car models just don't capture the imagination.

    It'll be interesting to hear the name for the new car. It's probably a sensible move to come up with an entirely new one, rather than just a new version of an existing model, if that makes sense.

    ReplyDelete