Volkswagen India Mulling Over Probable Reasons for Fall of its Sales

By far the year 2012 has not proved to be great for the German auto major, Volkswagen in terms of sales in India. The company indicated that the analysis of this is being carried on and the company is going to focus more on the customer satisfaction. According to Mr. Neeraj Garg, board-member for Volkswagen Group Sales India, this year the company is going to figure out if it is doing all the things in the right manner, the company also needs to see if the sales are qualitative.

January 2012 sales have seen a growth of 3.38 percent to 5,789 units as compared to January 2011.  The sales in the month of February declined 7.77 percent to 6,529 as compared to February last year. The sales again saw a growth of 2.85 percent to 8,326 units in March this year. The overall growth recorded by the company in the FY 2011-12 was 51.68 percent at 78,281 units. Mr. Garg also mentioned that it is not possible for the company to grow at the same pace, last year the company saw a very high rate of growth and now it will work on maintaining the level.

Regarding the areas of concern for the company, he hinted towards good after-sales services and the increasing expectations of the customers which company needs to manage. Mr. Garg also admitted that the company can do a lot in order to please the customers and stated that there is no manufacturer in the entire auto sector that can meet 100 percent of the customers’ expectations and a gap is definitely present.

Regarding the company’s plans on coming up with vehicles that use alternate fuel technology, Mr. Garg said that company will internally discuss upon equipping the cars with CNG fuel. He added that the idea is in the nascent stage and the company is still unsure whether to go for it or not. He however, did not mention anything about the time frame for launching alternate fuel vehicles.

The CNG market in India is restricted to Delhi, Mumbai and Gujarat and the total market share of CNG cars in passenger segment is 2 percent only, Mr. Garg added. Volkswagen has 103 dealers in 84 cities and has a manufacturing unit at Chakan in Maharashtra that is capable of producing 1.3 lakh units annually. The current line-up of Volkswagen India includes Volkswagen Polo, Volkswagen Vento, Volkswagen Passat and Volkswagen Jetta.

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