German luxury car maker BMW on Tuesday announced it has hiked production capacity at its Indian facility to 5,400 units per annum and will make a fresh investment of Rs. 70 crore by 2012.
The company’s wholly-owned subsidiary BMW India has a manufacturing facility in Chennai, which had an installed annual production capacity of 3,000 units before the addition. The company has so far invested Rs. 110 crore at the plant.
“India is a market that holds great potential for the future for us and is a building block in our global market offensive,” BMW AG Board member Frank-Peter Arndt told reporters here.
The company said that fresh investment of Rs. 70 crore will be for adding additional capacity over and above 5,400 units per annum but did not specify by how much it would go up by 2012.
BMW India is also planning to hike its manpower to 400 by the end of this year from 200 at present. “At the same time as we are expanding capacity, we will also be gearing the plant to produce a further model, XI, for the Indian market, starting in November 2010 and thereby opening up new customer segment,” Mr. Arndt said.
The company on Tuesday launched its new sports utility vehicle X5 in both petrol and diesel variants in India, priced between Rs. 52.99 lakh and Rs. 69.50 lakh.