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Buoyed by the influx of bookings for its newly-launched global sports utility vehicle (SUV) – XUV500 – Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) is looking at scaling up the production capacity of the all-wheel drive vehicle at its Chakan plant near Pune to 3,000 units per month during the next fiscal.
“The demand is clearly exceeding than what we can produce. So, looking at the demand we are putting in all our efforts and we would like to touch a volume of 3,000 units, from the existing 2,500 per month, in the short run and then ramp it up further,” Arun Malhotra, senior vice-president (sales and customer care) said here on Tuesday.
Since its launch on September 29 last year, the XUV500 received over 8,000 bookings in just 10 days, post which M&M suspended new bookings in October due to inability to meet the demand.
The vehicle was available only in five cities of Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, and Pune then.
Announcing the launch of XUV500 in the Hyderabad market, Malhotra said their primary objective was to ensure that their customers had no longer waiting periods. “Our idea is to supply to the first lot and then go to other cities. By the end of February, we will try to deliver all the 8,000 units that have already been booked,” he said.
M&M will open the Phase-II of bookings for XUV500, the fourth SUV from its arsenal, with the other three being Scorpio, Bolero and Xylo, for a limited period of 10 days starting January 25 in 19 cities including Hyderabad, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Patiala, Kochi, Thiruvanthapuram, Kozhikode, Trissur, Coimbatore, Nagpur and Nashik.
“If the bookings exceed 7,200 units, then we will go for a scientific and transparent draw process, which will be validated by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India,” Malhotra said, adding that the Rs 80,000 amount to be paid with the XUV draw application form was refundable.
M&M, which launched XUV500 at introductory prices ranging between Rs 108 lakh and Rs 11.95 lakh, had hiked prices in the beginning of this month with its two variants becoming dearer by Rs 35,000-Rs 50,000.
“We have passed on only 50 per cent of the price hike to those customers who have booked XUV in the first lot. The new bookings that we are doing now is with the new price,” Malhotra said, adding that the XUV is available at Rs 11.2 lakh for the W6 model and Rs 12.57 lakh for the W8 2WD model (ex-showroom, Hyderabad).
On the exports front, Malhotra said the company had started exporting XUV in small volumes to South Africa. “Once we are able to ramp up the production and feed the domestic demand, we will go into more countries,” he said.
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