Maruti Suzuki and Volkswagen India are exploring synergies in production and vehicle design. This global tie-up between Suzuki and VW may lead to synergy in production areas, where VW may leverage Maruti Suzuki’s expertise in high volume production at a very competitive cost and efficiency.
The two companies are exploring synergies in areas such as product design — not necessarily sharing models or joint model development — and product testing, evaluation or part designing of future models and special projects.
German auto major Volkswagen (VW) picked up a 19.6% stake in Suzuki Motor Corp (SMC) last year for $2.5 billion. A new entrant in India, VW is yet to gain any firm ground. It started production in India from this year at its Chakan plant, where it invested around Rs 3,500 crore, having a capacity to produce 1,10,000 cars a year.
In contrast, MSI is the largest auto brand in India, commanding over 55% of the car market, and is inching towards sales of 2 million units annually. MSI is also ramping up its research and development division with over 1,000 engineers and investing around Rs 1,500 crore in an upcoming R&D centre at Rohtak, to be used for developing cars for India and the ASEAN region. This would be the largest R&D centre of SMC outside Japan. crackcrack