GM to rejig Indian car portfolio; focus on exports: Barra
12 Sep 2014
General Motors Co is revamping its business in India and evaluating its product portfolio in the market, according to the US carmaker's chief executive Mary Barra.
"There are many aspects of the business that we need to work on to make sure we are efficient," Barra told reporters in New Delhi on a visit to India.
Despite a long presence in the market, GM has never made a profit in India. Barra however said that India was significant to GM's global success.
"In China we play in the core segments and here in some cases we are more on the fringe or we are not across the major segments. What we are evaluating here is, what is the right product portfolio," she said.
India is expected to become the world's third-largest passenger car market by 2018, moving up from its current sixth place, according to IHS Automotive.
Car sales in the country are reviving and are expected to grow by 5-10 per cent this financial year, after falling for two consecutive years.
GM plans to launch 40 new products in India and other international markets excluding China, North America and Europe, Barra said, without providing a specific timeline.
Despite a portfolio that includes compact cars, a favourite among buyers in India, GM faces stiff competition from Korea's Hyundai Motor Co, Japan's Honda Motor Co and Maruti Suzuki India, which together account for two-thirds of car sales in the country.
GM, which entered India in 1994, saw its market share fall to 3.2 per cent in the fiscal year ended 31 March from 3.3 per cent the year before.
"We are undertaking right now a transformation and a significant restructure of our organisation including India and we are building our strategy," said Stefan Jacoby, executive vice president of GM's consolidated international operations.
The company has started exporting cars from India to Chile, and Jacoby said making India an export hub for the Asia Pacific region "could be one of the options."
GM has recalled about 29 million vehicles worldwide this year, of which about 25.7 million were in the United States, over issues with ignition switches.
"At the end of Q2 we said and still continue to believe that the recalls ... are substantially complete," Barra said, adding that GM was working to "build defect-free vehicles" in future.
