How India Benefits From Skoda's New Plant In Vietnam | Klaus Zellmer Interview | NDTV Auto

here? Well, you know, generally speaking, the Asian regions or Southeast Asia is really important for us to establish a second pillar for our business model outside the European stronghold that we already have within the ASEAN region. Vietnam is really important. And with our partner Tong Cong, who have invested into our assembly facility here in Vietnam to serve the Vietnamese market, we are confident that we will be part of the growth potential that exists in this market. I mean, last year, 2024 versus 2023, was a 20 to 32% growth compared to the previous year. So this is a significant growth. Now there's talk about further growth potential, and we want to be part of that ride, and that's why we are very happy that today is the inauguration of our production facility and assembly line, with products that are very much linked also to our favorite market, India.

Yeah. So of course you need a bigger portfolio than two cars that you just mentioned, the Kushaq and the Slavia. So we're going to also bring over the Superb, our flagship, which is very important for our brand esteem, the Octavia, potentially the Octavia RS, so the upper model of that category. And then we shall see, we might also look at, we have the car already in the market, we have the Kodiaq in the market. So with that kind of portfolio, we have a big enough footprint for our dealer partners to create a footprint or a strong leg with their operations. We have already signed up 15 dealers here in Vietnam. By the end of the year, we want to have 25 dealers, and by the end of next year, we'll probably be looking at about 30 points of sale, and then we have a reasonable coverage of this market. Now, talking about EV strategy, there's a very strong player here in Vietnam, VinFast, that we very much respect. However, the general market condition, the infrastructure to charge and everything else, is not at a point where we are fully confident to start our EV portfolio expansion to Vietnam, because we have the Epiq, we have the Enyaq L&K, we have the Enyaq, we have a 7-seater SUV, all battery electric vehicles. So we're ready to come, but the market environment is not ready. So we shall see what the best time frame for that is.

Yeah, we, I mean we've said that before. We envision by the end of the decade—and we need to stay reasonable here—by the end of the decade, we see a potential of 30 to 40,000 cars sold carrying the Škoda badge here in Vietnam. Not all of them will be Slavia and Kushaq, so you can already cut it down. So it will have an impact on our volume and on our export from India, which is in favor of what governmental bodies want also from us being active in India. But it's something that we will manage within the given capacities.

It will not automatically be a product we localize in India that will automatically come over to Vietnam because that's a case-by-case decision. Now the Kylaq is a good example. The Kylaq in its sub-4-meter category is something that is very specific to India, because you know it's more than 50% of the overall new car potential of the market, the sub-4-meter category. And with the Kushaq, we actually have a car that is, from my point of view, a very good value proposition for Vietnam. Now, we shall see with our partner Tong Cong, who also runs the dealerships, on whether there's enough market potential to also scale that business, but we have not made that decision yet.

Thank you very much. Thank you.