Mahindra steps up production capacity at Nashik plant

Chennai, Mar 23: The Mahindra and Mahindra, India's market leader in utility vehicles, has stepped up the production capacity at its Nashik Automotive plant after its All New Scorpio became a hit in the domestic market.

Launching the new avtar of Mahindra's flagship vehicle here, Mr Rajesh Jejurikar, Executive Vice President Sales and Marketing said the company, which was making 3,000 vehicles a month, had enhanced the capacity to 4,000 vehicles after the demand for the All New Scorpio shot up.

In the last three days alone, there were 2000 bookings for the All New Scorpio, he said adding that the huge booking in the limited market in just three days was an "excellent journey". If the present trend continued, there would be a waiting period, he said.

The New Scorpio sported 43 new features, including a brand new suspension to give the customer a more enriching experience and all these features were added based on the feedback from the existing customersm, he said.

It took two years to come out with the All New Scorpio and a sum of Rs 30 crore had gone into the Research and Development, he added.

The company offered the new vehicle at no extra price for a limited period of 45 days, he said.

In the Utility vehicle segment, Scorpio enjoyed 12 per cent market share and it was one of the top three best selling cars in the Rs Five lakh plus car segment.

Previously, the C Segment cars had enjoyed 80 per cent market share and the Premium Utility vehicles 20 per cent, but now both the segments enjoyed equal market share, Mr Jejurikar claimed.

He said the company had no plans to sell petrol version of Scorpio in the domestic market. Presently, the petrol vehicles were being exported to South Africa, Malaysia and Europe. During this year, 5,500 vehicles were exported, of which Scorpio constituted 55 to 60 per cent of the volume, he added.

The company had sold 30,000 vehicles last year with Bolero as the largest selling Utility vehicle, he said.

UNI