Fiat Bets Big on India

Fiat is training big guns for the Indian car market. The company plans to sell over capture 8 percent of the market share by selling over two lakh cars in the domestic market by the year 2015.

Speaking to press people at the launch of the new hatchback Grande Punto, the Chief Operating Officer (international operations, Mr Silverio Bonfiglioli said "We want to be an important automobile brand in India. We have a target of 70,000 units of cars by the end of 2010. We plan to increase sales by threes fold in the next five years and plan to cross the two lakh units per year."

He said that the future of the automobile world depended on the emerging markets like Brazil, Russia, India and China, which will help compensate the slowdown in European markets and the United States.

As per the automotive analysts, the Indian passenger car market is estimated to reach 25 lakh units by the end of 2012 and Fiat which currently sells 8,000 cars per annum is expected to capture 8 percent of the market then.

Fiat India Automobiles (FIAL) is a joint venture between Italian car major Fiat SpA and the domestic car major Tata Motors.