Volkswagen India to launch high-end variants of Polo and Vento at lower prices

Volkswagen AG's (VOW.XE) India unit Tuesday said it will introduce refreshed variants of its Polo hatchback and the Vento sedan later this month, in an effort to push up sales during the country's upcoming festival season.Demand for cars in India has been severely impacted by expensive loans and high fuel prices, as well as a slowing economy.

But sales will rise during the festive season -- including Diwali, the festival of lights, on Nov. 14 -- which most people in India consider a good and lucky time to make purchases.

Local car sales during the April-July period this year grew at a slow pace of 5.6% to 634,298 autos.
But the main industry body, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, has forecast that brisk festival business will help sales for the current financial year through March 2013 grow between 9% and 11%.
Arvind Saxena, managing director of Volkswagen Group Sales India, said that sales of the brand's cars in August dipped to 4,410 autos from 6,091 a year earlier as demand remained weak.

Aaditya Charekar, head of product marketing at Volkswagen said the new variants of the gasoline-powered Polo will be priced between 489,000 rupees ($8,795) and 584,400 rupees at showrooms in New Delhi.
The new gasoline-powered Vento will be priced at 729,000 rupees to 874,805 rupees. The top new variants of the Polo will be up to 40,000 rupees cheaper than the existing models, while the Vento will cost about 20,000 rupees less.

Volkswagen has a factory at Chakan in the western state of Maharashtra, which can produce up to 130,000 cars a year. It makes the Polo hatchback, the Vento, Jetta and Passat sedans at Chakan and imports the Beetle and Phaeton cars and the Touareg sport-utility vehicle.