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    Audi plans more than one product every quarter: Audi, India Head

    Synopsis

    "The vision is very clear, is to drive the change towards more cleaner petrol and electrified vehicle. This is something we believe in" says ​​​Balbir Singh Dhillon, head of the Audi brand in India..

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    ET Q&A

    Balbir Singh Dhillon, who recently took charge as the head of the Audi brand in India, has his plate full to steer the brand out of a sustained decline in a shrinking luxury-car market. In an interview with Ketan Thakkar and Satish John, Dhillion says his plan is to go back to the basics, bring in high-tech cars, drive petrolisation and electrification and strive for profitable dealers. Edited excerpts:

    You take charge when the luxury-car market is set to register its steepest decline — must be challenging?
    To be honest, it is the best time to start. The only way is up from here. The ups and downs are a part of life and business cannot be a straight line. The biggest agenda on my plate is the sustainability of the brand. Whatever we do from now on, the customer is at the centre and the business has to be profitable and sustainable. There is a new product line up which is coming, which will help us get back on track. Again, the caveat is not rush back to volumes, but look at profitable, sustainable business. The focus is not market share. We are not running behind No.1 in volumes. We want to be No.1 in customer satisfaction, managing their ownership lifecycle.

    Audi has been hit the hardest by dealership closing, which impacted volumes too. How are you addressing the situation?
    To be honest, I am not worried about volumes as much as I am worried about the network. We have done a lot of things to make the network profitable and sustainable. We are adopting a workshop-first approach — for instance, a place like Trivandrum still has less number of cars, so instead of opening the showroom, we decided to just have a workshop. The workshop is profitable for the dealer, a customer also gets to service his car close by. I want to expand with existing partners to multiple locations. There is a thrust towards digitalisation. From now on, wherever we bring in new partners, priority will be workshop, pre-owned car and then new cars.

    On 2020 and the way ahead for Audi in India…
    We are part of the market, so we will be declining. Yes, last 4-5 years, all vehicle makers are eating into each other’s share and the (luxury-car) market has remained between 30,000 and 40,000 cars. It is important to grow the market.

    As for immediate future, we feel the industry has bottomed out; at some point it will have to move up. For Audi, the approach towards India remains long term. We have internally made a strategy for 2025, after several interactions with our leadership including our stakeholders — that is dealers to be among the leaders.

    While we are cautiously optimistic for 2020 — it may be a flat year for us — we are optimistic for 2021. In 2020, everybody will be transitioning to BS-VI emission norms, thereafter we will also vacate the part of the segment (some SUVs, including dieselpowered). As we move towards petrolisation and electrification, we have to also tread carefully, we don’t want to again get into push, we will instead rely on pull. As we move into 2020, we will have more than one product every quarter.

    You are exiting some product segments and also diesel…
    Yes, we will vacate some segments for sure. The vision is very clear, is to drive the change towards more cleaner petrol and electrified vehicle. This is something we believe in. We have already announced that we will be coming with E-Tron all electric SUV into India.

    Will the exit from diesel and other models be bridged with more products?
    A lot of opportunities have opened up, thanks to the government’s 2,500 cars import regulation without homologation. It can open up new segments for us.

    This can also help us in experimenting with products, the E-Tron electric SUV for example. There are a lot of products on the drawing board; we have to see when do we bring them in and at what price, whether customers are ready to move into the subsegments we are exploring.

    Are you surprised by the stagnation in the luxury-car market?
    There will come a time when the luxury-car market will take off. It cannot remain at 1.25% of the overall market. Car penetration in India at 22 cars per thousand people is also very low. The market will eventually grow, when the plane really takes off, we will have to wait it out. It is our responsibility as well to grow the market as against eating into each other’s share by giving heavy discounting.
    The Economic Times

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