Mahindra and Mahindra, the country’s largest sports utility vehicle manufacturer, has no immediate plans to export its newly launched 5-door Thar ROXX, Rajesh Jejurikar, CEO & Executive Director (auto & farm), Mahindra & Mahindra told Business Today on Wednesday.
The company will initially focus on the domestic market, according to Jejurikar.
“At this point of time, we are expecting that we are going to be pretty full with meeting domestic requirements for some point of time, so no plans on exports,” said Jejurikar.
The company launched the five-door variant of its iconic Thar — Thar ROXX — at a starting price of Rs 12.99 lakh, aiming to take on the mid-compact SUV segment. According to Jejurikar, the newly launched product will aid them drive sales in the mid-SUV segment. With the launch of Thar ROXX, the company anticipates Thar Brand to take the lead position in the above Rs 12.5 lakh segment.
The company commands 19.1% market share by volume, the second after Maruti Suzuki, while leading in terms of revenue with 21.4% market share in the SUV segment. The company has invested Rs 1,000 crore for Thar ROXX.
The company plans to have a monthly production of 6,500 units for Thar.
“Everything that we are doing is focusing on making sure that we have volume momentum, because with that come better cost better, supplier involvement, motivated dealers, motivated team. So, it’s an ecosystem. It gets charged up when you get volume momentum. So, for us, the momentum, the moat, gets created out of the volume, that’s what is helping us now get cost,” said Jejurikar.
Notably, the SUV manufacturer is banking on “mainstay appeal” by Thar ROXX to take pole position in the Rs 12.5 lakh segment. “It’s (Thar ROXX) just going to get appeal from multiple sub segments and will create its own path of growth,” said Jejurikar.
“You’re going to fundamentally see two segments. And the very interesting thing about the Thar ROXX is it can be the only car in the house, because it is a mainstay product. So, it can be the first car, and it can be the whole thing. It can even be a single car. Thar three-door was typically a second car, or for young couples who just wanted to have this. But this can actually go into both the segments. So lot of segments open up because it goes into mainstream, as we just said, urban and rural,” said Jejurikar