Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd's managing director Pawan Goenka spoke with Swati Khandelwal of Zee Business about his expectations from the recently launched XUV300 and the ongoing slowdown in the auto industry.

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XUV300 has performed well and people are saying that this is a comeback product for M&M. What are your expectations from it?

This year can be divided into two parts of four-five months each. The first part has been a good one for both the industry as well as M&M, but a slowdown was witnessed in the second half. The industry remained weak in the festive season, which forced every company to go for a stock correction. In fact, the sales remained low even in November and December months. But I feel that it has passed and hope that things will be better in the months ahead.

You thought the same in January, but it didn't happen?

That's true that I thought that way for January as well, but I don't have a reason to highlight why it didn't happen. And, this is the only reason that I am thinking that it may happen in February.

Can election be a reason?

No, I don't think that way because, nowadays, the election has no relation to car sales as it used to have two decades ago.

Thus, you are expecting that things will improve from February onwards?

I think that it will happen from February. This is an important time for M&M because we have launched three vehicles and the response for them has gone beyond what we thought. In fact, four months have passed since when Marazzo was launched but its booking is yet quite strong. There is a waiting-list despite no offers or discounts. And all the feedback from customers, not just from the media turned out very positive. Several who drove Mazarro for the first time have given a thumbs up to us.

Later, we launched Alturas, which is a great vehicle at a good price. But we had concerns related to its price. We were wondering if people would like to buy Mahindra's product spending as much as Rs 30 lakh and we are happy to inform that nobody is saying why Rs 30 lakh for a Mahindra car. And again the bookings for Alturas is very strong, in fact we have over 1000 bookings pending right now.

This means that the performance of these two vehicles, is going beyond your expectations and now you have launched your third lot?

Yes, it has been a two-day story and I would not like to say much about the story. But, this story of two-days reminds me of the story that we saw seven-years back with the launch of XUV500. The frenzied atmosphere that we saw seven-years back at our showrooms was once again repeated at the showrooms. In fact, the dealers who are here, are very happy and were saying that there was huge footfall at the showrooms and they were not able to handle the pressure. So, this is a happy moment for us.

M&M used to be a flagship SUV company but has lost to its competitors in the last few years. Do you think that you will be able to regain market share in this space, if yes, then why and to what level?

The SUV segment growth has been a phenomenon one and there is no doubt in it. Mahindra doesn't have its vehicles in the compact SUV segment, which comprises 50% of the total SUV segment, i.e. 40,000 of the total 80,000 SUVs/month. We were not playing in the segment that is our market share was in only in half and we were half of half. So, in the segment that we were in, we still have 50% market share in it.

But, the volumes were low in the segment.

Volumes never went up in that segment, but it grew in the segment where we didn't have a strong presence. But, our new launch, XUV300, which has every potential of becoming a very strong product in that segment. It will give us the market share, but I will not say that it will become half of that half, but we will get a significant share in the segment too.

I would like to know about the portfolio, where you haven't left any segment. Name the segment that will act as a growth driver for you?

Now, we will have to think about the future of one-two overlapping products like Xylo is overlapping with Marazzo. But, when it comes to XUV that starts from 4.6 meters KUV100 to 4.8 meters Alturas G4, we are covering frame and crossover, we are covering 2-wheel drive and 4-wheel drive, we are covering MPV, SUV and all short of segments like seven seaters and five-seaters. So, there is nothing to do in terms of new space. Everything that we will do from here is to ensure that the products remain current, which means we will be launching refresh at times and new products at times. And normally, refresh in four years and new product in eight years. So, we will have to look into our old products to refresh them or to introduce a new product.