It is reported that Indian carmaker Maruti Suzuki is to expand its presence in Bahrain and other Middle East countries.
Mr Sashank Srivastava executive director of Maruti Suzuki said that the company was looking at making its presence felt in the Bahrain market with an aggressive marketing campaign and creating more awareness about the brand.
Mr Srivastava said that “Part of our brand awareness will centre around making people more oriented towards smaller cars as opposed to the larger SUV’s.”
He said that “The trend in this part of the world is towards large cars that are heavy on fuel but that does not make a difference because of low fuel prices. Since we do not manufacture large cars, we find that to be somewhat of a deterrent.”
He added that two of the Suzuki cars manufactured in India, the Celerio and Desire, are now available in Bahrain, with more ‘made in India’ models on the way. Other Suzuki models now available in Bahrain are imported from Japan.
Mr Srivastava said that the company has started negotiations with its Bahrain dealers Mohammed Jalal and Sons on how to improve its presence and share in the Bahrain market.
He said that “A lot of positive suggestions have come and we are looking at how to implement them. Over the next few months, we shall have the results of those suggestions.”
He added that 40% of the nearly 50,000 strong annual Bahrain car market consisted of SUV’s. That is where the other carmakers score over us.
Source – Trade Arabia News Service