Maruti to launch new Grand Vitara
Kolkata: Maruti Udyog will soon launch the new Grand Vitara that its parent company Suzuki Motor Company (SMC), has introduced in the global markets. Built on a new platform, this is the third-generation Vitara offered by SMC. Known as Suzuki Escudo in Japan, the Grand Vitara, will not be manufactured at any of the Maruti factories in India and is being imported from SMC Japan as a completely-built unit. Powered by a 2-litre, variable intake system (VIS) engine, it will be available in nine colours and two variants — automatic and manual drive.

Company sources said the Grand Vitara is likely to be price it in the range of Rs13 to 15 lakh.

The new Grand Vitara will be pitched against SUV brands like Honda CR-V, Ford Endeavour, Hyundai Tucson.
Back to News Review index page  

Maruti targets rural India for sales
New Delhi: Maruti Udyog has started a marketing drive in villages and has entered into an understanding with regional rural banks for car finance to push sales.

The company said it's rural drive is already showing results as it has already sold 2,700 cars and generated about 20,000 enquiries through the rural scheme that was started in April.

Interestingly even in the rural hinterland, of the cars sold under the scheme 50 per cent were Alto while about 23 per cent were M800.

The company's success in penetrating rural India was based on its ability to rope in regional rural banks as partners and for financing help from the company's existing umbrella of car financiers including Mahindra Finance and Magnum.

Besides approaching the banks, MUL has also been innovating its rural sales strategy by asking dealers to appoint rural sales executives (RSEs) to build and maintain relationship with potential customers.
Back to News Review index page  

Honda to position small car in premium segment
Tapukara: Honda Siel Cars India has announced its entry into the small car segment in India and has said its small cars would cater to the premium market and would not be priced as low as $3,000 (Rs1,20,000) unlike other small cars in the Indian car mart.

Honda has said its small car would cost about $9,000 (Rs3,60, 000). The company officials said the small car would not be a vanilla offering.

The company plans to develop a hatchback like Maruti's Swift or Hyundai's Getz in the premium segment that would qualify for excise duty benefits given to small cars.

The company's planned plant in Rajasthan would be set up with an initial investment of Rs1,000 crore, would begin production by 2009 and employ about 3,000 people.
Back to News Review index page  

Spentex acquires Czech firm for $25 mn
New Delhi: Spentex Industries, the biggest yarn maker in India, has acquired Schoeller Litvinov K.S. in the Czech Republic for $25 million. The acquisition would help Spentex have footprints in the Czech Republic, Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxemburg. It will also gain access to a large customer base in over 30 countries. The transaction will enhance the topline of Spentex by about €55 million and add another €6 million per year in cash flows, a company release said. Schoeller's revenues during the year ending 2006 were €54.5 million. This is Spentex's fourth acquisition in the recent past. It acquired SK Birla group's Cimmco Spinners, Indo Rama Textiles and the Uzbekistan-based Tashkent-To'yetpa Tekstil earlier.

The company is eyeing one more acquisition this year.
Back to News Review index page  

Bajaj June bike sales decline 12 per cent
Mumbai: Sales of Bajaj Auto fell by 12 per cent in June this year. The company sold 162,253 motorcycles in June, down by 12 per cent over 183,549 motorcycles sold during the same month in 2006. Total two-wheelers sold during June, including exports, were 164,758 units as against 188,231 units sold in June 2006.

Exports of two and three wheelers, however, during the month grew 42 per 48,675 units, as against 34,369 units exported during the same month last fiscal.

Sales for the first quarter ended June 30, 2007 (Q1FY07) were down further at 14 per cent with total two-wheeler sales standing at 499,777 units, as compared to 578,621 units in Q1FY06.

The company plans to launch a motorcycle in September, with a monthly target of 50,000 unit sales.
Back to News Review index page  

Jet Airways in talks with PE players for selling stake in Jetlite
Mumbai: Jet Airways is believed to be in preliminary talks with leading international private equity players like the Dubai-based Istithmar PSJC, US private equity firms Texas Pacific Group and Blackstone and Singapore's investment holding company for offloading a minority stake in JetLite, its budget airline that was earlier Air Sahara.

Jet Airways, which is readying itself for a $400 million rights issue to fund its expansion plans, is said to be considering diluting up to 25 per cent in JetLite.

Jet Airways has been looking for capital to finance its international operations and aircraft acquisition.

JetLite expected to be profitable by October-November and is currently being rebranded by Jet Airways which is integrating Air Sahara's frequent flyer programme.

Jetlite is being repositioned as a "value carrier" — that is, an airline between a low-cost and a full-service carrier. To this end, JetLite has discontinued business class operations from June and re-configured its aircraft to all-economy seats.
Back to News Review index page  

Tata Steel out of biding for Vietnam steel firm
Kolkata: Tata Steel has lost the bidding battle for Vietnam's Vinausteel and SSE Steel after losing a vote on the resolution for its sale and purchase agreement by Vietnam Industrial Investments (VII), the parent company of the two steel makers.

VII informed the Australian Securities Exchange — the company is listed on the Australian stock exchange - that the resolution on the sale and purchase agreement was lost on a poll vote by shareholders at its annual meeting on June 29.

Tata Steel's Singapore subsidiary NatSteel was to acquire 100 per cent in SSE Steel and 70 per cent in Vinausteel. The transactions were to be completed by June.

The deal ran into problems when Prudential Vietnam Securities Investment Fund Management Company and VII managing director Henry Lam Van Hung, who holds 10.46 per cent, made an unsolicited cash takeover offer.

Prudential's offer of $13.3 million was 10.65 per cent higher than NatSteel's. With the vote rejecting NatSteel's offer, VII's independent directors will propose an amended offer for $17.6 million from Prudential.
Back to News Review index page  

Airtel, RCoM DTH to enter broadband
New Delhi: Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications (RCOM), are set to foray into Direct To Home (DTH) services by the year-end and are looking at providing satellite-based broadband internet services along with their DTH offerings.

Bharti officials the company would offer broadband through Wi-Max or through DTH in areas where it did not make economic sense to lay copper wires.

Similarly, RCOM's DTH venture called BlueMagic is also looking at satellite internet services as one of the key differentiators. RCOM sources said that along this facility, the company was also looking at an entire gamut of voice and data services, including facilities like video on demand to offer higher interactivity to subscribers using its digital TV platform.

Satellite internet is considered as ideal solution for rural users who want broadband services, but do not have access to telephone lines and cable systems. A combined offering with DTH also makes satellite internet economical. This is because, standalone satellite internet services works out to be expensive proposition as it requires a satellite dish for two-way (upload and download) data communications.
Back to News Review index page  

Exports of top 3 IT majors stand at $9 bn; survey
New Delhi: India's IT software and services exports from the top-10 firms crossed $15 billion to touch Rs68,236 crore in 2006-07.

The big three IT firms TCS, Infosys and Wipro received $8.7 billon (Rs39,260 crore) from IT software services and exports according to an industry survey and analysis by Dataquest (DQ). The next four slots have been taken up by Satyam (Rs5,789 crore), IBM (Rs 4,880 crore), HCL Technologies (Rs4,598 crore) and Cognizant (Rs4,584 crore). With this line, there is no change in the rankings of the top seven of the top-10 software firms.

Seven of the DQ Top-10 software firms are Indian multinationals. The software and services exports of India development centres of foreign multinationals, which made it to the top 10 - IBM, Cognizant and Oracle — added up to Rs13,127 crore. The revenues of Oracle include those of i-flex post-integration during the year. Oracle and Tech Mahindra stormed into the DQ Top 10 at No 8 and No 9 with revenues of Rs3,663 crore and Rs2,890 crore respectively. Patni Computers slipped two positions to 10 with revenues of Rs2,573 crore.

Almost all Indian players focused on bringing down their revenue share from application development and maintenance (ADM) and succeeded. Managed infrastructure services emerged as the new favourite. Infosys, which had identified IP creation as a major thrust at the end of the year, had 81 patent filings.
Back to News Review index page