Fiat and Tata to finally part ways, first dealership on the way on January 6th

Finally, the day has come when Fiat has decided to pack its bags and open its own dealerships across the country. The decision is taken mutually by Tata Motors and Fiat who have been involved in a 50:50 joint venture running 67 dealerships together in 20 top cities. Fiat India is presently looking at opening around 22 standalone dealerships by end of this year to extend it to 45 by 2014. All the same, the Italian manufacturer will over all touch the indented 67 sales and service centers mark by 2015.

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Fiat India commercial department Vice-President, Ravi G Bhatia communicated that the new Fiat dealerships will feature  a small café while the focus will be to win back its fan-base  providing uncompromising service, sales and spares which would be a one-stop shop for all the needs of a consumer. Fiat India is looking at the first lot of Fiat dealerships to inaugurate at Delhi, Pune, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata and Jaipur. The separate dealership costs will however be borne by the dealers which is expected to amount to Rs 250 crore in all. Both Tata Motors and Fiat India are not quite happy with the turn of events, where Tata's chief Ratan Tata had said that their social rapport with the Fiat Motor’s CEO Sergio Marchionne did not reflect where the business relationship is concerned.

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The common dealership program did not work out the way the auto giants have expected where Fiat India had to take the maximum brunt. The Italian car manufacturer had to witness a decline of 15% sales during the FY2010-2011 when the car industry was rejoicing over the exemplary growth of 30%. The current fiscal 2011-2012 has however shown a downturn in sales by 31% when the entire car market is down by just 3.5%. However, the year 2012 could portray a different picture for Fiat who has just made an auspicious beginning launching two new cars the 2012 Fiat Linea and 2012 Fiat Punto on January 3rd with a slight revision in the new Fiat Linea price and new Fiat Punto price beginning at Rs 6.83 lakh and Rs 4.81 lakh respectively for the base variants.  Fiat India is all set to inaugurate its first Fiat Café at New Delhi on January 6th which is hopefully Fiat’s first stepping stone to success.

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