Over the daily Toyota runaway stories, it’s easy to forget the plight of GM and its children abroad. If you think that’s the idea, then you are a miserable conspiracy theorist, and you should stand in the corner. With that in mind, let’s check in with GM and its worldwide siblings to see how they are doing. Read More >
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Category: India
Volkswagen and its freshly hitched 20 percent bride Suzuki will have a sit-down next week to “flesh out their joint projects by welding together a number of ideas,” reports The Nikkei [sub] from an earnings briefing in Wolfsburg.
The Nikkei guesses that Volkswagen will provide hybrid and electric-vehicle technologies to Suzuki. In turn they are interested in know-how on manufacturing subcompacts at low cost. As far as distribution goes, the two will most likely compare notes on China, where VW is strong, and on India, where Suzuki rules the roost. Read More >
Sales recently began in India for Ford’s “all new” Figo. The launch of the Figo, a five-door sedan/hatchback, was a supposed to be a big deal. It is Ford’s first car designed specifically for the Indian market, and it was introduced by Mullaly himself in India last September. It’s built in Ford’s refurbished Chennai plant, where production started up in early February after a $500 million investment. In addition to producing cars for the local market, where sales are booming and compact cars, the so-called Sub B segment, make up 70% of the sales volume, Ford intends for the Chennai plant to be a supply hub for their Asia, Pacific and Africa operations.
For the first time, monthly car sales in India exceeded 150,000 units according to February numbers released by SIAM, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers [via The Economic Times of India]. Those figures represent a 33% improvement over Feb. 2009. Analysts attribute the sales bump to people pulling the trigger in advance of expected higher taxes in the national budget. Indian automakers anticipate that the increased demand will slow as prices rise due to higher interest rates and new emissions standards.
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India is going to be an economic powerhouse, just like China. With 1.1 billion people, that’s a lot of potential customers for your goods. Suzuki knew this, which is why they pushed hard in India. Suzuki is the undisputed market leader in India. Whenever there are developments in that market, we should probably listen. Listen up: Read More >
Uh-oh. Daimler must be needing money really bad. Reuters has on their wire that Daimler is trying to sell their complete 5.34 percent share in Tata Motors for cheap. They are offering the package at a discount of 4 to 7 percent below the stock’s Monday close, and hope to raise $429 million. Read More >
Renault is using their Dacia subsidiary to produce cheap cars for Eastern Europe and other emerging markets (such as Germany, where Dacias had been snapped up during the Abwrackprämien-orgy.) Meanwhile, Renault’s Japanese twin Nissan is starting to feel a little left out. Yes, they have the Nissan Pixo, which is a rebadge of the Suzuki A-Star, which is built in India (and was recalled recently), but Nissan seems to want something of their own and they want the Indian truck manufacturer Ashok Leyland to help. Sounds easy enough … Read More >
Everybody who’s ever worked in China knows that some things take some time. Nothing that is announced today, happens tomorrow. There are applications to be made, documents to be “chopped.” Sometimes, this process takes forever, as it seems to be the case with Hummer. Sometimes, things move a bit faster. Last December, we reported that GM would sell a crucial one percent of the 50:50 holdings of GM China to their joint venture partner SAIC to bring the shareholdings to 51 percent SAIC, 49 percent GM.
As China’s new year (that of the tiger) came around, China’s biggest automaker SAIC Motor Corp has won regulatory approval to acquire the crucial 1 percent stake in Shanghai GM, Shanghai Daily reports today via Gasgoo. The matter has been officially filed to the Shanghai Stock Exchange yesterday. It’s official now. General Motors officially has been relegated to minority shareholder in its key venture in the world’s largest auto market. SAIC is now calling the shots. Read More >
Last November, we reported that Carl-Peter Forster had stepped down as CEO of General Motors Europe, in protest over GM’s interruptus of the Opel/Magna deal. We also reported that Forster may take a job at Tata in India. All in due time … Read More >
Hyundai are on fire at the moment. They’re posting good profits at a time of economic instability, their quality & reliability is winning them awards and customers like what they see in their showrooms. However, that magic formula seems to be losing its lustre elsewhere in the world. The Hindu Business Line reports that Tata Motors have snatched number 2 position from Hyundai in the Indian market. Sucks to be third! Read More >
It’s obvious that Suzuki isn’t surviving the global downturn on US sales. Stateside, the Japanese automaker’s sales fell over 50 percent last year, with only 38,695 vehicles sold. Globally, Suzuki sold 908,302 units, meaning fewer than one out of 20 Suzukis sold worldwide were in the US market. That’s no big surprise as Suzuki has long focused on developing markets for growth. What is surprising is that Suzuki’s Indian joint venture Maruti actually outproduced its parent company, racking up 966,399, of which about 130k were exported. Wilder still, Maruti sold 967,581 units last year, more than it could produce and more than Suzuki produced worldwide. Suzuki owns 54 percent of Maruti, the best-selling brand in the Indian market by a healthy margin. The Indian market grew by 19 percent last year, while the Japanese market fell by ten percent.
David Smith, CEO of Jaguar Land Rover has left the company for reasons that JLR and parent firm Tata refuse to elaborate upon beyond telling the Beeb that Smith’s departure is “not linked to the recent breakdown of talks with unions over pay and pensions.” Since the sale to Tata, Jaguar has been negotiating a two-tier wage system and pension reform with workers at its four British plants, but talks stumbled to a halt just days ago. So, that’s definitely not why Smith left suddenly.
Optimism is a rare commodity in the auto industry these days, and nearly all of it comes from the so-called BRIC nations of Brazil, India, China and (to a lesser extent) Russia. India in particular is being targeted as one of the few growth opportunities for the industry’s global players. Nissan/Renault, Volkswagen, Honda, Ford and GM have all recently announced major initiatives to target growth in India’s entry-level market, and GM even gave up control of its Chinese operations in order to beef up its Indian presence. But, as the Hindu Business Line reports, India could be staring down the kind of overcapacity that is causing so many headaches for automakers in mature markets.
Japanese car manufacturers, reeling from a doubly whammy at home (down 9.3 percent) and in the U.S.A. (down 21.2 percent) are looking increasingly to growth markets such as China (up 45 percent) and India (up 18.7 percent.) Large players like Nissan, Honda and Toyota in China, and Suzuki in India, have been there for years. Now there is a virtual stampede. A collection of news from today’s Nikkei [sub]: Read More >
The prospect of US launches by Chinese and Indian auto brands like Tata and BYD have at least one of the established US-market players in a paranoid froth. Honda VP John Mendel revealed a few of the nightmare scenarios that keep him up at night to USA Today [UPDATE: more on Mendel’s fears at Automotive News [sub]]. One, inspired by BYD’s plans for a 2010 US launch without a distribution channel in place, is that newcomers could skip the dealer model altogether. Mendel worries that “warehouse stores or electronics stores” (sound familiar?) could be used to cut dealers out of the loop, “blowing up” business-as-usual for US distribution strategy.
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