Volkswagen Group set to invest ₹7,900 crore in India by 2021
German auto major Volkswagen Group on Monday announced an investment of €1 billion (around ₹7,900 crore) between 2019 and 2021 as part of its latest strategy to enhance presence in India which will be led by group firm Skoda Auto.
As part of ‘India 2.0’ project, Skoda Auto is setting up an engineering design and development centre at Pune besides enhancing capacities at the group’s two plants at Aurangabad and Pune.
The group will launch a new SUV based on VW’s flexible MQB platform by the second half of 2020. The group has set a target of capturing 5% of the Indian passenger vehicles market by 2025. “We are now investing up to 1 bilcreate lion euro by 2020-21. This is the biggest investment which we have done in one single market. This the first and most decisive step,” Skoda Auto CEO Bernhard Maier told PTI in an interview.
On the R&D centre, he said: “It will be ready by the end of the year...we plan to hire 200-250 engineers to develop cars in India.” The group is looking to up to 5,000 direct and indirect jobs through setting up of the engineering centre and creation of additional capacities in the two plants.
“We want to exploit the maximum of our current capacities in Pune and Aurangabad,” he said, adding, currently the group is working on finalising the details. Elaborating on the VW group’s ambition in India, he said: “Our plan is to have a market share of 5 per cent for VW and Skoda brands together in India by 2025.” The VW group has around 2% market share in PV segment in India, which stood at over 3.2 million units in 2017-18. Going forward in India, he said the group’s future models will be based on the MQB AO platform which will be highly localised in order to achieve cost competitiveness.
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