The Indian luxury sedan market crossed the 15,000 mark in 2010 and Volvo has now launched its S60 sporty luxury sedan in the segment.
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“The S60 is pitted against models like the Mercedes-Benz C Class, BMW 3 series and Audi A4,” Volvo India managing director Paul de Voijs said.
“The Indian luxury sedan market is getting interesting, the way numbers are growing every years, it has become important for us to increase our presence in this market.”
Asked about the size of the luxury sedan market by 2020, Voijs said: “It will be anything between 140,000 – 150,000 units annually by 2020 considering the growth trend of the last few years.”
Volvo entered India just over three years ago and offers four premium models: the XC90 and XC60 SUVS and S80 and new S60 sedans.
Considering India’s bad record for pedestrian fatalities, the S60 has been launched with safety features including pedestrian detection with full auto brake.
“More than 4,000 pedestrian casualties are recorded in this country every year and this is the reason we have added this feature in the S60 model launched in India,” Voijs said.
Volvo has around 20 pre-launch orders for the S60. It sold 130 cars in 2010 and plans to shift over 200 this year.
The company has seven dealers and has identified key cities for new outlets.
“We have another 5-6 dealerships in the pipeline this year in the cities of Kolkatta, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Jaipur and Gurgaon,” Voijs said.
“We are not planning any more models this year as we are focusing on building long-term presence in this market.”
