Honda will begin selling its CR-V sports utility model in India to compete with rivals such as General Motors, Mitsubishi Motors and Suzuki, Bloomberg News reported.
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The vehicle, which will be sold from July, will cost about 1.5 million rupees ($US32,000), Hajime Yamada, president and chief executive officer of Honda Siel Cars India, told the news agency.
Bloomberg News noted that car makers are introducing more expensive cars and utility vehicles in Asia’s fourth-biggest car market after Japan, China and South Korea as rising urban incomes and falling interest rates stoke demand for bigger and more powerful cars. Honda wants to quadruple its market share in India to 10%.
“We are lining up an array of launches this year as we push toward our goal,” Yamada reportedly said at a conference to unveil the CR-V, which will be imported into India from Japan.
Bloomberg News said that, last month, Suzuki started selling the Grand Vitara sports utility in India through its local unit, Maruti Udyog, India’s biggest carmaker, priced at as much as 1.7 million rupees. General Motors began selling the Subaru Forester, made and rebadged as a Chevrolet, by Fuji Heavy Industries in March.
Besides the Forester and the Vitara, the CR-V will compete with Mitsubishi’s Pajero, some models of which are assembled locally by Hindustan Motors, Bloomberg News noted.
The news agency said the sale of utility vehicles such as Toyota’s Qualis and Tata Engineering and Locomotive Co.’s Sumo, in a country where only six in 1,000 people own a car, rose about a 10th in the year ended March 31 to 114,316 units.
Bloomberg News said that is prompting Hyundai Motor and Ford to introduce sports utilities in the country. Hyundai plans to sell the Terracan sports utility in India this quarter, Vinod Harith, the spokesman of the Indian unit told the news agency last month.
Yamada also said Honda is considering selling a hatchback car in India but didn’t provide further details, Bloomberg News said.
