Isuzu Motors India has opened its first showroom in Tirupati, its second showroom in Andhra Pradesh and third this year. President and MD Takashi Kikuchi inaugurated the new dealership along with Shigeru Wakabayashi, deputy MD, Isuzu Motors India.

Located at Renigunta Road, the showroom is spread across 2,500 square feet and is part of Isuzu’s expansion plans under which the company had planned to open a total number of 60 outlets across India by end of 2015-16.

Commenting on the launch, Takashi Kikuchi said, “We are very happy to open our flagship showroom in Tirupati. Andhra Pradesh is an important and growing market for us. Our brand and products have been received extremely well here and with this dealership opening, we look forward to our growing market in South India.”

With this new showroom, Isuzu Moors India has eight facilities in south India comprising one each in

Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Kochi, Visakhapatnam, Tirupati and Madurai.

The company currently sells two vehicles in India – the MU-7 SUV and the D-Max pick-up truck. The bookings for the MU-7 will start from today in Kochi. While the MU-7 is priced at Rs 22.93 lakh (BS IV) and Rs 22.63 lakh (BS III), the D-Max is priced at Rs 7.39 lakh (all prices, ex-showroom Tirupati).

A part of Chitoor district, Tirupati is a key market for Isuzu; the company’s upcoming manufacturing plant is in Sri City, which is in Chitoor district. The groundbreaking ceremony for the plant, which is likely to be operational by 2015-16, was held on January 28, 2014 at SriCity.

The Japan-based Isuzu Motors is a global manufacturer of LCVs, CVs, UVs and diesel engines. It has operations in 25 countries with its vehicles sold in over 100 countries worldwide. The company says it manufactures and sells close to 600,000 units per annum globally.

Isuzu Motors India began its India operations by bringing in a limited volume of completely built units (CBUs) for test marketing. In the next phase of its project, it has begun assembly of CKD units under contract manufacturing with Hindustan Motors. This is an intermediate stage of the company’s project in India, before full fledged localised manufacturing begins at its own plant at Sri City in Andhra Pradesh by 2016.