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Cars: Duster, an unexpected success in India: 24,000 units sold in 6 months
Renault found the ideal solution for the Indian middle class by means of Duster, which is big enough, safe and cheap to propel sales of the French group which is getting close to competitor Volkswagen on the third largest car market in Asia, Bloomberg informs, quoted by Mediafax. Renault has sold about 24,000 Duster cars since the launch of the SUV in the Indian market in July 2012, while the rest of French models recorded sales of less than 4,000 units in the first 9 months of the financial year to close down in March.
The higher demand for SUV in India, the hatchback aspect of Duster and the price available to a rising middle class helped Renault get closer to Volkswagen on one of the markets with the highest increase potential in the world.
In November, Renault estimated that India would become one of the top ten markets of the group according to sales, compensating for the drops in Europe.“Duster created a break for Renault . The SUV segment is rising while Volkswagen does not have a competitor model,” the HIS Automotive manager for India, Deepesh Rathore commented.
The Volkswagen SUV Touareg starts from 5.85 million rupees, the equivalent of 110,000 dollars, 64 times the average incomes of a family in India, or 7 times the price of Duster. Because of the high price, Volkswagen sold only 45 Touareg models in India over April-December.