Audi India on Friday inaugurated a new showroom in Calcutta after a gap of over two years.
The German luxury car manufacturer had appointed Adventure Auto Car India Limited, part of the Motherson Group, as its partner for Calcutta in December 2019. But the dealership operated out of Taj Bengal from the end of 2019 till now.
On Friday, a new showroom at New Town, Rajarhat, was inaugurated by Audi India head Balbir Singh Dhillon.
“As of today we have 60 touchpoints in India with 41 workshops in 32 cities. Geographically, we are well-covered. We don’t have plans to expand our network any further. The focus will be on profitability both for our business partners and us,” said Dhillon in Calcutta.
When asked if not having a physical showroom hurt sales in Calcutta, Dhillon said: “Car buying is an emotional experience. While most of our customers did their research online, they visit the showroom to check out the colour, touch and feel and of course test drive the vehicle.
“We were providing all of that at Taj Bengal where our models would be parked. Now we have the showroom. The workshop was there throughout where our customers’ cars were serviced.” Adventure Auto Car India Limited also operates the West Delhi Audi dealership. Similarly, the Jubiliant MotorWorks operates multiple dealerships in multiple towns for Audi including Bangalore, Chennai, Pune. When asked if it was economically prudent to have a single dealer partner for multiple cities, Dhillon said: “It is good to expand with existing partners. The back-end costs are substantially reduced this way.” Both Mercedes Benz and BMW have dealer partners who run dealerships in multiple cities.