In a bid to boost sales in rural areas and Tier III cities, Hyundai Motor India has launched its special rural marketing initiative called Hyundai Utsav. The scheme will initially run in rural areas and Tier III cities across Andhra Pradesh and Punjab.

The Hyundai Utsav

is at present being offered in over 50 venues in the two States. Under the scheme, Hyundai plans to reach out to prosperous farmers, money lenders, business community, private companies, government employees, doctors and lawyers across all non-dealership towns to create increased awareness about the Hyundai brand. In this context, the car maker has already tied up with a number of PSU banks.

According to Arvind Saxena, senior vice-president (sales and marketing), HMIL, “We feel that 50 per cent of the 220 million rural households are potential car buyers and to tap this vast unexplored market, we have launched the Hyundai Utsav campaign. We are confident that a vast chunk of prospective car buyers would prefer our products.”

Despite the current drop in commercial vehicle demand in the country, German automaker Daimler has recently reaffirmed its commitment to the Indian truck market. Even the abrupt and unexpected withdrawal of the Hero Group from the truck joint venture with Daimler, has not dampened the company’s enthusiasm. Our cover story takes a comprehensive and behind-the-scenes look at Daimler's plans, reporting that India is expected to emerge as the fourth global pillar of Daimler’s truck business after Germany, Japan and North America.

The company also plans to bring forward the launch of its heavier trucks. Their demand is expected to be driven by the development of the highway network, their greater operating efficiencies and the development of the hub-and-spoke transport model within the country. Another positive development has been the recent start of production by Maruti Suzuki of its hi-tech new K12M petrol engine at its Gurgaon plant.

Developed specially for India in order to meet the small car excise norms, this project has given a big boost to Maruti's in-house research and development capability. The Euro-4 emission norms-compliant powerplant has a 90 per cent localisation level that will help lower costs and also elevate the skills and prospects of all the suppliers involved in the project.