Around 100 Minis Booked in a Week

BMW will be importing Mini car models as completely built units (CBU) in India. The cars will vie with the Volkswagen Beetle and the Fiat 500. Mini car models will be priced between Rs. 25 lakh and Rs. 37 lakh.

January 12, 2012: BMW India Pvt. Ltd has received around 100 bookings for its Mini car models in a week. The Mini brand has really received a great start in India. However, the headquarters in Germany was not allowing bringing Mini to India mainly due to questions on pricing and profitability. So, BMW India Pvt. Ltd. had to convince the headquarters in Germany and now, the result is public. In November, the BMW India president Andreas Schaaf said, “After much discussion at the BMW board level over the last few years, we have managed to convince them.”

According to the sources, “We have had close to 100 bookings for the car” in about a week, a BMW spokesperson said. “There were enquiries about the brand, but we did not expect such demand.” Thus, the decision of the Schaaf appears to be right. The company will be importing the Mini car models as completely built units (CBU) and will give them the price tag that will be falling between Rs. 25 lakh and Rs. 37 lakh.

Speaking about the delivery of the vehicle, “We will start delivery of vehicles from April onwards and the focus is on the high-end market,” said the spokesperson. Moreover, the company will be opening two exclusive showrooms in Delhi and one in Mumbai by the March, 2012. Also, the cities like Pune, Chandigarh, Chennai and Bangalore will have the dealerships of Mini by the end of the next year.

Although the company is receiving orders for the Minis, it doesn’t intend to sell more than few hundred units. “We expect many such customers, but we don’t intend to sell more than a few hundred units because of two reasons. We want to maintain the exclusivity of the brand and there could be a limitation on the number of units we can import,” said the spokesperson. The limitation on the number of imports is because the BMW India has to place orders for the cars at least before 9 months with its headquarters in Germany to receive the delivery of the car on time.

The Mini will vie with the other iconic car models like Volkswagen Beetle and Fiat 500 in India. According to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers data, Volkswagen has sold only 59 Beetles within 9 months of this fiscal year compared to 332 units in the year-ago period. Similarly, even the Fiat SpA hasn’t sold a single Fiat 500 since April mainly because they don’t fit into the norms of the Bharat III emission introduced this year. Thus, there isn’t any fierce competition for the Mini to face and so, it can become a bigger brand than the other two provided it sustain the initial demand. The Mini is available to the Indian customers in 5 variants namely Mini Cooper, Mini Cooper S, Mini Cooper Convertible, Mini Cooper S Countryman and a special edition variant.