07 July 2008, Lesie D'Monte; business-standard.com: Pune: Volkswagen, Europe's biggest car maker, has sold around 10,650 passenger cars in the first half of this calendar year in the country, and expects to close the year with a sale of 20,000 units."This implies 69 per cent growth in volume sales in India, which is a very important market for us. Our intent is to have at least a 10 per cent market share in the coming years," asserts Jochem Heizmann, member of the management board, Volkswagen. He was here to conduct an employee group meeting, besides inspecting the progress and conducting "detailed technical discussions" at the company's Chakan plant in Pune, which is expected to start production by July 2009 (the other is in Aurangabad that assembles the Skoda family of cars). The plant has an annual production capacity of 110,000 cars. The company has invested €580 million (around Rs 3,600 crore) in the country so far. This includes product-specific investments, besides the capex for the Chakan plant and building of a dealer network. The company has around 15 major dealers currently, and plans to increase the number to over 100 by 2010. At present, the auto major is only catering to the domestic market, and has no plans for exports at least for the time being. The ‘Polo' and Skoda Fabia models are expected to drive volumes for the company, while the ‘UP' models (when introduced) are expected to be an answer to the low-cost cars in India, including Tata Motors' ‘Nano'.
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