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Made in India, Made for India

By Niranjan Mudholkar,

Added 03 October 2016

Riding high on the success of the recently launched Ameo, Volkswagen India is aiming to bring out more India specific products going ahead, says Dr. Andreas Lauermann, the Company’s President & Managing Director.

The Ameo has certainly brightened up things for VW and Dr. Lauermann believes that things will only get better from here on. The car is indeed special for Volkswagen India as it is the first car that the Company has built specially for this market. It is ‘made in India' and ‘made for India'. "The segment in which Ameo competes doesn't exist anywhere in the world except in India. And in India, unfortunately, we were the last one to enter it. But this is also a learning curve. We are fairly young in India as a company. And it is difficult to understand what is necessary for this market, in a very short span. It takes a little bit of time to develop the right solution. I believe that we are on the right track now that we have a better understanding of the market. We now have a car which is more fitting. We are offering the latest features at an aggressive price. There is absolutely no compromise on quality and safety; it is just like any other Volkswagen product when it comes to quality. This is a good mixture that we can offer to our customers. It should be a success and for the moment it looks like," he
says with confidence.

So will we see more such ‘Made for India' and ‘Made in India' products from VW going ahead? Dr. Lauermann doesn't give a quick ‘yes' or ‘no' reply. His response is much more studied this time. "We are making a lot of investigations on how we can continue in India because when you look at the total market then obviously we are not the biggest one. This is not
Volkswagen like and we want to have a bigger market share and be more successful. Therefore we have to investigate in the ways that we are doing business. Our overall portfolio is not so bad but we have to develop it further and we are looking at it. There are discussions happening with some partners and we are open to ideas. We are exploring the possibilities right now so it is difficult to share any concrete details. But yes, our aim is to bring out more India specific products. That, we will definitely do."

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