BMW India Refuses to Resort to Price Wars

Philipp Von Sahr, President, BMW India made a statement yesterday where he ruled out any kind of price war with BMW’s competitors. The head of BMW India, who has worked for the German automaker for 27 long years, believes that the competitors may be running up the price feud to unsustainable levels.

"There are price wars and rivalry between competitors in other mature markets but it’s much more intense here. In India price war is in line with volume products and often competition forgets that 'we are premium players'," stated Sahr.

Now we all know that the 3 major competitors in the premium luxury vehicle segment are BMW, Mercedes Benz and Audi. While it is a well-known fact that Audi, having beaten Mercedes already, are now catching up to BMW for the title of top premium luxury maker, Sahr believes that in the long run, it is Mercedes and not Audi that are their main rival.

BMW India is therefore not planning to reduce prices in an effort to garner more sales. What then is their strategy? Well, from the looks of it, BMW may in fact increase the prices on their products by as much as 10% so as to maintain their premium appeal. In addition to this, BMW India plans to increase localisation of several models in an effort to keep down the import duties.