[Aditya]

General Motors India has announced that it will start production of vehicles for export at its Talegaon plant in Maharashtra in the second half of 2014. The vehicles will be exported to Chile and sales are expected to commence in the first quarter of 2015.

The company has disclosed that its first export model will be the Chevrolet Beat hatchback. The car will be built as a left hand drive and in both, petrol and diesel variants. Apart from India the Beat is built and sold in many markets across the world.

General Motors India claims that the exports will create more employment opportunities in the company and supplier community. It will also help in improving the capacity utilisation of the Talegaon plant.

Apart from Talegaon, General Motors India has a plant in Halol in the state of Gujarat.

[GTO]

It's a good move, especially since GM's Indian factories are grossly under-utilized. However, they are going to need to tap into bigger markets than Chile. It's tiny compared to India and the numbers will be peanuts.

[ad3952n]

GM has faced a tough time in India in the recent past so an export plan is probably the only way out to re-gain their lost ground and reputation. Chevrolet Beat being a successful model in India can help GM make a mark in their future market place i.e Chile. Not going into the employment aspects but GM surely needs to keep a tab on their product quality as I am sure they would not like to create a recall situation straight away over there.

Further to expand their horizons as a brand, GM should just not stick to 1 specific model rather they should also think about exporting of Sedans from their end. Probably they are being too optimistic but by exporting just 1 model how much change can be achieved in sales ?

Further to this I also would like to add that the psychology of a buyer is to be understood i.e before introducing their car in a new market they should properly study the present scenario and calculate the risks involved after which they should take the step.

Moreover, Be it any country, The buyers do not readily accept a new model. They still take their time so GM has to strike a chord with the potential purchasers in the best possible way.

Thanks.

[Dry Ice]

General Motors has two factories in India that can build a combined 282,000 vehicles annually, but it has been utilising less than a third of their total capacity.

GM sold nearly 81,000 passenger vehicles in India in the fiscal year ended in March for a market share of 3.2 percent, according to data from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers

source: http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/0...0E70KR20140527

I am astonished actually at their installed annual capacity! If they do manage to sell that many cars, it would translate to about 24k/month and that will take them to the no.3 spot in the Indian market.

I know companies try to forecast and build according to the expected growth but this is just too much of a margin! Have they leased it out to some other company or is it not operational yet?

If it's up and running and all of it it under GM, then that is a huge gap to bridge IMO and exports alone won't help. They need the domestic demand to pick up as well. Unless they launch some 'exciting and relevant' products in the market, it's only going to get worse for them.

[desdemona]

For some reason, Chevrolet just hasn't maqnaged to resonate with Indian buyers, despite some pretty good products, across segments: the spark has been the BEST small, A-segment car for years, even the Sail U-VA sedan's pretty good, mature looking, rides well, is roomy, has the MJD engine, the Enjoy is really compelling value.

Their dealers aren't notorious, are they, as is widely believed about several other non-East Asian firms? Why then?

I sure hope they can expand exports starting with this news, exports seem to be the only financial hope for too many car firms here, given the brutal, unforgiving nature of the domestic market, and the too-strong preferences of the average car buyer in India.

Chevrolet has a very long old history in India, going back to the 1940s, i believe. So it will be sad if they cannot deal with the crisis at GM India, and GM globally.

[skyrocket003]

A friend of mine works in the Finance division with GM at their Pune office and he told me about their plans to start exporting and my immediate question was " Why didnt they think about it earlier?" As has been mentioned in above posts, they do have some decent models in their lineup (Spark, Beat, Sail u-va) but IMO they have not got the marketing right.

[yaniv14]

GM was/is a highly respected company known for bringing in some really well built and robust vehicles in the Indian automobile Industry. They have some seriously good products in their stables which are taking a beating due to some poor marketing strategies or the lack of it.

Till such time GM plans on exporting its vehicles, here is look at the list of top 10 cars exported in the last financial year.

Hyundai i10 – 109,074 units
Nissan Micra – 78,383 units
Hyundai i20 – 59,789 units
Maruti Suzuki A-Star – 45,193 units
Nissan Sunny – 37,730 units
VW Vento – 32,017 units
Hyundai Accent – 29,107 units
Ford Figo – 28,304 units
Maruti Alto – 20,858 units
Hyundai Eon – 19,296 units
*Source – Economic Times

Hope we see a GM product in the next years list.

Cheers,
Vinay.