BMW launches third-gen X3 at Rs 49.9 lakh; opens 45th dealership in India

BMW India, the Indian arm of the German luxury carmaker, today introduced the latest iteration of its midsize SUV, the BMW X3, starting at a price tag of Rs 4,999,000 ex-showroom, New Delhi.

The new X3 has evolved over the outgoing model and gets a slew of changes both at the fundamental level, as well as aesthetically. At the outset, the SUV is now 55kg lighter than its predecessor and boasts contemporary styling all around.

The face is now more mature, with a completely new pair of headlamps, grille and bumper. The kidney-bean grille and the LED corona rings, which now fancy a hexagonal design with DRLs, keep the front true to BMW’s heritage and its family look.

Towards the side, it gets a new set of alloy wheels, which sport diamond-cut finishing and the rear end culminates into a redesigned pair of tail lamps, which get full-LED treatment for all the lamp functions.

The new SUV takes its luxury quotient to a level higher with all-leather upholstery, which is available in different colour choices as well as gets gesture control feature for the music system from the flagship BMW 7-series sedan. It also gets a 360deg camera along with park assist, which can make the SUV parallel park itself without needing any driver input. The new generation of the BMW X3 comes in two trims – Expedition and Luxury – where the latter gets beige upholstery and adds accents of chrome to the exterior bits like on the grille upfront.

The new X3 comes powered by a single diesel engine option, which is a 2.0-litre four cylinder motor, churning out 190bhp of power and 400Nm of peak torque. The drivetrain includes a ZF-sourced eight speed automatic gearbox, along with BMW’s XDrive all-wheel-drive system. The company, however, also offers a 248bhp 3.0-litre four-cylinder petrol motor in other markets abroad, and plans to bring that to India in the latter half of 2018.

The BMW X3 is being brought into the Indian market through the CKD route, and gets assembled at the company's plant in Chennai, in Tamil Nadu. The German major assembles majority of its models on sale in the country, which sees the 3-series, 3-series GT, 5-series, 6-series GT, the X1, X3, X5 and the flagship BMW 7-series getting built at the facility.

BMW India had clocked total sales of 9,800 units in 2017, including numbers for both BMW as well as the Mini brands. While BMW sales comprised the major chunk at 9,379 units (+25%), a total of 421 Minis went home to buyers (+17%). In all, the BMW Group registered 25 percent YoY growth in the 2017 calendar (CY2016: 7,035).

Continuing its momentum into the new calendar year, the company sold a total of 2,377 units in Q1 of CY2018 between January to March 2018, registering 11 percent growth. While Mini accounted for 136 units out of the total lot and registered notable 15 percent growth, the BMW Group also saw 100 motorcycles under the newly launched BMW Motorrad brand, going home to buyers.

According to Vikram Pawah, president, BMW Group India, “Our success in 2017 and now in the first quarter of this year comes on the back of a resolute approach towards implementation of our ‘Power to Lead’ strategy, which states our primary goal as that of increasing the luxury car market in the country and rising to the top. We aim to achieve this by working towards the needs of our customers and a testament to that fact is that we already launched seven models at a go at the 2018 Auto Expo. Our aim is to grow in double-digit numbers in CY2018, given that the economic conditions remain favourable.”

New showroom in Gurgaon
Alongside unveiling the new SUV, BMW also inaugurated its 45th sales outlet in the country – Bird Automotive – located in Gurgaon in the national capital region. The company today has its physical outreach in 31 cities across the country and aims to grow its dealer network in a viable way, with a target to reach 50 showrooms by the end of 2019. It is also leveraging newer concepts like showroom-on-wheels, where its BMW Mobile Studio vans, already operating out of key dealerships in the country travel to over 50 locations from one particular outlet.

Variant-wise ex-showroom prices for new BMW X3:
X3 XDrive 20d (Expedition): Rs 4,999,000
X3 XDrive 20d (Luxury): Rs 5,670,000

Also read: BMW’s Chennai plant starts production of upcoming third-generation X3

Interview with Vikram Pawah, president, BMW Group India

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