Jeep India positive about auto sector outlook; to launch new products in 2022

Jeep India, which posted a robust 130 per cent volume growth last year despite a bumpy ride due to the pandemic, is positive about the outlook for the domestic automobile industry and is set to launch new products this year.

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Besides, it anticipates the market to grow further notwithstanding concerns over the impact of the Omicron variant, Jeep India Head Nipun Mahajan.

Driven by the facelift version of SUV Compass in February 2021 and the locally-assembled Wrangler, Jeep India sold 12,136 units in 2021 as compared to 5,282 units in 2020. This reflects a 130 per cent growth in its vehicle sales.

Jeep is a part of the portfolio of brands offered by leading automaker and mobility provider Stellantis. Currently, Jeep brand has two products in its India portfolio -- Compass and Wrangler.

While it has been producing Compass at the Ranjangaon facility near Pune since June 2017, the company started local-assembling of Wrangler from mid-March last year from the same facility.

"We are pretty positive on the outlook because of the market resilience. In the last 4-6 years, the market has gone through many ups and downs, adjusting to various factors but the bounce back is pretty good," Mahajan told PTI.

Noting that 2021 itself had a 20 per cent growth across segments over 2020, he said "market will grow (further). We will have, of course, some disturbances as we are starting with Omicron, but despite that, the

Indian consumer has the capability and requirement to grow automotive industry. That will help the market to grow over 2021".

According to him, 2021 was a very good year for the Jeep brand in India with sales spiking a massive 130 per cent at over 12,000 units compared to year earlier.

"There were COVID implications on the business when the year began but I think we all recovered very well. Jeep India also saw a 20 per cent increase in volume in 2021 over 2019, which was the pre-pandemic period," Mahajan said.

The launch of the new Jeep compass with strong product attributes received an overwhelming response from the customers, he said, adding, some of the customer centric initiatives that the brand took after the lockdown situation eased out also helped it getting in good traffic at showrooms.

"2022 is going to be a very big year for us when we will be launching two new products. And we will have lot of action on Compass as well, starting with Compass Trailhawk in February this year," Mahajan said.

Jeep brand being in the premium segment is covering both the starting and the ending point of the segment in the domestic market very well, he said, adding "we are only going to strengthen our position with the new products that we are going to come up with".

Further, Mahajan said the company has already invested USD 250 million for the development of new products and Jeep will continue to invest here in new products.