Merc's EV push: German automaker Mercedes-Benz has completed the milestone of its presence of three decades in India. The auto major was the first major luxury auto brand to foray into the Indian automobile market. In an exclusive interview with Republic Business, Santosh Iyer, MD and CEO of Mercedes-Benz India Limited says it continues to record a double-digit growth in India.

RB: How has been the journey so far and what are the current models that Mercedes-Benz is betting big on?

Santosh Iyer: We are celebrating 30 years in India this year and that really shows that we have been strategically patient in this market. We have witnessed a robust grown as even in 2009 when I joined this company, we were selling close to 2,800 cars, and last year we clocked 17,400 car sales. A double-digit growth year-on-year led by strong products, a very differentiated business model that we run on the retailing side. E Class still continues to remain our larger-selling sedan in our segment and of course on when it comes to SUVs, the entire portfolio of the GLA, GLC, the GLE, GLS are among best-selling cars and the more desirable cars in the segment.

RB: What are the sort of vehicles we can expect new launches?

Santosh Iyer: For Mercedes-Benz, we are very clear that we have committed to twelve launches at the start of the year, six have already happened. We will continue to do the balance six and of course our EV focus continues. The next car would be an EV. We have already announced we will be introducing the E QA to India which should come in the first week of July and we will then continue with our product offensive as we go in the rest of the year.

RB: How do you feel about Tier 2 markets at a time when the non-urban centres are witnessing robust demand for luxury cars?

Santosh Iyer: Instead of calling them Tier-2 markets, we are mini-metro-oriented where only the population may be a bit lower as compared to larger cities. The aspirations and the desirability of the brand are the same. Every youngster aspires to love a Mercedes-Benz when they are growing up and that remains even in these markets in India.

RB: What do you think about the government’s efforts to boost EV penetration?

Santosh Iyer: In terms of taxation, I think EV's have a very good taxation of 5 per cent GST and opting for an EV as compared to a combustion engine car is an apt decision. The need of the hour is to kick in into the charging infrastructure space. Mercedes Benz India has a large number of charging stations and one of the largest supercharging networks across India installed at our dealerships and our partners. I think there is still scope, but it's always like the chicken-egg story of whether the cars will come first or the charging infra will be there.

RB: How do you look at India as an automobile market?

Santosh Iyer: I think as Mercedes-Benz we operate in many markets worldwide and it's quite clear that we need to do the business in those markets based on the regulatory framework and the environment that we have. We are quite pleased with our business in India. You know, if you look at our US as Mercedes-Benz India in terms of sales of cars, then we have a subsidiary in Bangalore, with more than 10,000 people doing RD, we have a non-banking financial company called Mercedes-Benz Financial.

It has an 8000 crore plus portfolio. I think all of this clearly shows that we are able to do profitable business. Of course, there would be, you know, areas where one can always improvise, but I think as long as the regulatory framework is conducive, we are able to do business. I think it's part of normal business process as that happens in other parts of the world as well.

RB: Do you plan to ramp up production in India in days to come and what are your efforts for inclusivity?

Santosh Iyer: At the current stage, we have enough capacities to produce as per the market demand. So, we don't see any critical need or an immediate need because we have already planned for the uptake which will come during the festive season and the capacity is sufficient for us for this demand uptick during the festive season. As Mercedes-Benz Group in India, we need to be clear that we generate more than 20,000 jobs, you know, directly, indirectly in the Indian market. I think that very few people realise the efforts that we do when it comes to job creation. On the other side, when you look at our social responsibility as a corporate citizen, we have different initiatives.

RB: How is research and development important, especially at your Pune plant in India?

Santosh Iyer: We have a global setup and most of the cars or all the cars that we sell in India are all available globally. So, they are all global nameplates. What we do is we try to see what we can do for India. The emphasis is on quality and we have done a lot of investments on equipment to measure on the processes to track and also on technology because today our client is able to even install, you know, hyper screens in an EQS, we are able to produce an EV and a combustion engine in the same line and that shows also flexibility in production and also the advanced processes we have. When you talk specifically about RD, that's a separate company based out of Bangalore, which does RD for the world. So, we take a lot of pride to say that there is an India in every Mercedes across the world because the engineers back in Bangalore are working a lot to contribute to the global RD ecosystem so that.

Mercedes Benz India committed to launching 12 cars in 2024, says CEO Santosh Iyer

Mercedes Benz witnessing double-digit growth in India’s automobile market, next launch to be an EV.

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