Cape Town: Homegrown automaker Mahindra & Mahindra is looking to tap the 2-million unit market for mid-sized pick-ups with a new global lifestyle pick-up truck that will first be launched in its key existing export markets including South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, Africa, the Middle East and South & Central America, the company announced during its global concept showcase in Cape Town on Tuesday. Mahindra is aspiring to snag a double-digit market share in these countries, where it has a rapidly growing presence, albeit with a single-digit share in the respective markets.
As part of its global expansion strategy, the SUV-maker will also look to launch the lifestyle pick-ups in left-hand drive markets such as the European Union and the United Kingdom. The product will also be brought to India, although the company did not share a timeline for a market launch. The pick-ups, when launched, will be manufactured in some of Mahindra’s international assembly plants, such as in South Africa and Australia, where it already produces itself variants of the Scorpio pick-up truck.
The company also laid out its strategy to build its electric vehicle brand, announcing a decision to unify its two electric vehicle brands, ie XUV.e and BE, as well a future born EVs like the Thar.e and Scorpio.e into a single brand identity, with a new logo. Meanwhile, its electric SUV factory in Chakan, Pune, will become operational by the end of 2024, when it will launch its first born EV, the XUV.e8. The factory will be able to produce 200,000 units of electric SUVs by 2027, the company said.
As part of its future product showcase, Mahindra & Mahindra also showcased a born electric Thar concept, an EV reimagination of its cult off-roader Thar, but it maintained that it will not change its plans to launch the five born electric products it had decided and shared a year ago in Oxfordshire, Banbury. The company shared the various collaborations it has initiated to define its EV roadmap and products, including bringing in music composer A.R. Rahman to design the soundscape for its electric vehicles, and a partnership with Dolby Atmos and Harman Kardon to design the aural experience of the born EVs. The company has said it expects upto 30% of its sales to come from electric vehicles by the turn of the decade.
“We are creating the new pick-up product by understanding the needs of multiple global markets, not just the Indian market. Indiaa will be an important part of the strategy, but the product is not being created just for it. As we take inputs from all these countries, we will understand the requirements of those markets and then map out from a timeline entry into those markets”, Veejay Nakra, president, automotive division, Mahindra & Mahindra said reporters on the sidelines of the event, adding,
“Let’s call the current phase of our globalization plans as phase one, which is where we’ve taken our authentic SUVs into multiple markets, like Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Nepal, etc. We would also be taking left-hand drive versions of some of these products into the LHD markets like UK and Europe. So our globalization strategy doesn’t only include entering new markets with new products, but also to scale up existing markets where we have only a 1%-2% share, but with these products can target a much higher market share in those nations.
There is a large market where we are currently present in. We want to go and get respectable market shares in those market. Then we will bring in phase two of our globalization plans and add new markets”.
Source: Mint
