General Motors developing new platform for emerging markets

General Motors' products have not been received very well in India. Its latest offerings like the Chinese-developed Sail hatchback and Enjoy MPV have failed to draw customers to its showrooms. In an attempt to turn things around, the company is said to have started working on a new project, codenamed Amber - a new platform from ground up, on which three new cars will be built.

These vehicles - a premium hatchback, a compact sedan and compact SUV will be targeted at emerging markets like India, Brazil, Russia, Thailand and Mexico. General Motors plans to design the new platform in Europe and engineer it in Brazil.

With the Amber project, General Motors expects to sell about 1-1.2 million vehicles per year out of which India will account for about 1.5 lakh units. For India, the company plans to prioritise the compact SUV, which will be followed by the premium hatchback and compact sedan.

However, even if things go according to plan, cars based on the new platform will hit our shores in 2018 - a wait of four years. Till then, General Motors does not seem to have any new products in the pipeline. This could see the American carmaker lose even more ground to its competitors.

General Motors sold about 1.10 lakh vehicles and had a market share of 4.18% in India in FY12. In the next fiscal, the company managed to move just 80,000 units and its market share dropped to 3%. As on March 31, 2013, the company is sitting on accumulated losses of Rs. 2,740.48 crore.

Source: Economic Times