Mercedes-Benz India Investment Up Rs. 400 Crores To Localise Models

2020 Mercedes-Benz GLC Review Test Drive — The German manufacturer is increasing its efforts to have a solid footing here

Mercedes-Benz has increased its investment by Rs. 400 crores in India in order to localise models.

This takes the total amount pumped into the country by the German luxury carmaker to Rs. 2600 crores.

Much of its fresh investment, that was done over the course of a few months’ time, has gone into new tooling and into the firm’s production lines.

The company is increasingly looking to locally manufacture and assemble cars so as to improve its dominance in the luxury car segment, the reason for the fresh Mercedes-Benz India Investment.

It was only yesterday that it launched the first assembled-in-India AMG product the GLC 43 4MATIC Coupe for Rs. 76.70 lakhs (ex-showroom, India).

By localising its imported models, the German brand will see gain a significant cost advantage over imported models and will be able to pass on the benefits to customers, thereby pricing its models aggressively.

It is said that local manufacturing of the AMG model brings down its cost by over 20 percent at present. Currently, the company manufactures 11 models here.

Martin Schwenk, the CEO and Managing Director of the Indian-arm of the German firm says that localisation of models increases their potential to do well.

Last year, the firm sold over 13,000 cars. But sales was affected by the pandemic this time as the firm managed to sell 5007 units in the first nine months of the year.