The Indian BMW sales have surpassed all expectations. The German car making company had estimated to cross its sales projection of 10000 cars by the year 2012, which would be surpassed by the end of 2010 itself. In the month of February 2008 the company sold nearly 241 cars. BMW is catering the premium luxury segment in the Indian automobile industry. The segment has competitors like Mercedes and Audi but the advantage BMW has is the manufacturing unit in Chennai. The company is able to roll out models at lower prices due to the low cost of production in India and the differences in the duty structure.
BMW at present manufactures petrol and diesel variants of the BMW 3 Series and BMW 5 Series. Both of these types are luxury sedans of different variants such as 320i, 320d, and 325i in the BMW 3 Series segment and 523i, 525d, and 530i in the BMW 5 Series. The company is also open to any kind of specific customization required by the customers.
In the year 2007, BMW sold out 1387 cars. It was projected that the company would have sales amounting to 1000 cars. Actual sales were more than 38% higher than estimated sales. The company has invested around 30 million US Dollars for its new production unit, which would help BMW to roll out around 3000 cars in a year, working a single shift.
The company has 9 dealerships at present. Some of the important dealers are Navnit Motors Pvt. Ltd. - Mumbai, Deutsche Motoren Pvt. Ltd. - Delhi and the newly inaugurated Delta Motors at Hyderabad. The company has plans of setting up 12 dealerships in India by the end of the year 2010, which is expected to be achieved by 2008 itself. Among the new destinations would be cities like Kolkata, Kochi and Ahmedabad. These new outlets would not only display the existing products such as BMW 3 Series and BMW 5 Series produced at the Chennai unit but also the new ones like BMW 6 Series, BMW 7 Series, BMW X3 and BMW X5 available as fully built up units.
The company also plans of expanding its existing product portfolio with the introduction of the MINI, a part of the BMW Group. There are also plans to introduce its range of bikes if the company finds a suitable market. However, as of now, nothing is planned for the bikes. The Rolls Royce, another legendary luxury car manufacturing company, under the BMW Group, is already introduced in the Indian automobile market.
The international purchasing office of BMW in Gurgaon would concentrate on exports development of BMW products from India to the BMW group's international production network.
