Volvo to assemble premier cars near Bengaluru (Lead)

Bengaluru, May 18:  Swedish automaker Volvo Cars on Thursday announced setting set up of an assembly line near Bengaluru in southern Karnataka to roll out its premium cars for the Indian market, an official said on Thursday.

"The operations will be near Bengaluru where our first model XC90, a premium sport utility vehicle, will be assembled and rolled out this year to grow in the expanding premium car segment," Volvo Cars Chief Executive Officer Hakan Samuelsson told reporters here.

The global transport solutions and automobile group has a huge presence at Hoskote, about 40 km from Bengaluru East, since 2000, wherefrom it rolls out Volvo buses, trucks, construction equipment, and makes Penta engines.

"As we will make use of the group companies and their infrastrfuture/ production licences, contract and financial details for the facility will not be disclosed," Samuelsson said.

Pointing out that vehicle assembly in India was an important step for his company, the CEO said their aim was to increase sales in the fast-growing market and double the firm's market share in the luxary segment.

"With robust sales growth, expanding network and a slew of new product luanches, the assembling facility will provide us an impetus to garner a sizeable segment share," said Volvo Auto India Managing Director Tom von Bonsdorff. 

Though the Indian luxury market is small, it is forecast to grow rapidly in coming years to garner 10 per cent premium segment market share by 2020 from 5 per cent currently.

"We had a robust 32 per cent annual growth in sales volume in two years and this year the trend is as per our plan to sell 2,000 cars annually, to give us 25 per cent year-on-year growth from 2020," added Bonsdorff.

The company sells nine luxury models, including saloon, hatchback and SUV categories.