Volkswagen aims for a 10% sales boost in 2023 says

As an aspirational country with sustained economic growth, demographic dividend, India is aligning with global preferences -- as for SUVs, premium models -- keeping Volkswagen on growth path,” Ashish Gupta, Brand Director of German automobile major Volkswagen India tells The Sunday Guardian.

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Q1 How has the year been for Volkswagen amidst all the global headwinds? What were last year’s figures for you?

If I have to just sum up how this year has been, there have been a lot of challenges, as usual, but at the end of the day, I think it has been quite a successful year for Volkswagen. You don’t measure success only by the volumes you do, but also by how you have been able to progress the brand, have you been able to maintain the trust with customers and partners. December is still not closed, but it looks like we’ll close maybe 9 to 10 per cent above last year, which is good progress.

Last year, we delivered close to 40,000 cars to customers. The calendar year is how we measure all our numbers. And this year, we will end up close to around 44,000, maybe around 10 per cent growth, which is not bad considering we had a lot of challenges in the first half of the year with supplies and everything. Of course, you always want to do more because I think the brand has a lot of potential. What gives me a lot of happiness and pride at the end of the year, is that we have been able to increase or improve the acceptability of the brand for customers. Part of that is reflected in the numbers we are doing, the kind of brand push that we have had towards the premium end of the market and more premium segments. We have been able to make that transition very successfully.