Famed German car giant Volkswagen Group that also hotly contests the number one spot for the largest car manufacturer with Toyota recently announced that it will merge its three Indian subsidiaries – Volkswagen Group Sales (Audi, Porsche, Lamborghini), Volkswagen, and Skoda India. To let you know, Volkswagen is one of the largest car manufacturers of the world and even famed brands such as Bugatti also belong to this German brand. The move has been aimed at increasing efficiency of the group in India and also at cornering a larger market share in one of the fastest growing car markets of the world.
Volkswagen Group’s latest move comes at the heels of Skoda being anointed as the leader of ‘India 2.0’ project of the group. The upcoming merger has received a green signal from the board of all the concerned subsidiaries and will make the group more streamlined in its approach in the Indian market.
The merger does not mean that one will not get to see cars with the brand Volkswagen, Skoda, Audi, Porsche or Lamborghini on the roads. Rather, these brands will still sell models under their badge and will also have distinct dealership and service networks throughout the country. It is the top management level where the merger will take place and have the greater impact.
The merger will see the brand work under the leadership of Gurpratap Boparai who currently is the managing director of Volkswagen India Private Ltd and Skoda Auto India Private Ltd. Speaking on the major move by the brand, Boparai said,
“India is an important and an attractive growth market for the Volkswagen group. With the proposed merger, we intend to combine the technical and managerial expertise of the three companies to unlock the Volkswagen group’s true potential in India’s competitive automotive market. The integration will lead to faster decision making and increased efficiency using existing synergies,”
As already mentioned, the new group will be led by Skoda in India. This essentially means that the decision making responsibility will rest with Skoda India and the company will work hard to push the sales of the company to higher levels. The Volkswagen owned brand is hard at work on India 2.0 that was announced in 2018 and will see the Volkswagen Group invest Rs. 8,000 crore in India in the future.
The merger will see the members launch a lot of new cars in the Indian market. The leader of the project Skoda will localize the MQB A0 platform for India. Let us inform you that MQB A0 is the smallest platform of the brand in India. The upcoming cars from the merged companies will use the same platform for the cars they will launch in the Indian market.