“To be successful and make Audi an even stronger brand in times to come –
that is my aspiration for Audi.”

Mr. Balbir Singh Dhillon, Head of Audi India shares his valuable perspective on the growth of India’s luxury car segment, Audi’s pioneering efforts towards environmental sustainability, the current landscape of India’s automotive industry, and the future of the iconic Audi brand – in an insightful conversation with Mr. Ranojoy Mukerji, Editor-at-Large, GlobalSpa Magazine.

You have taken over Audi India some time back, and this year the results have been good. What do you think is the reason that the market has become so much more receptive and you are getting better sales?

I think one of the most important things in terms of volume growth is the product portfolio. We have already launched nine products this year, which shows that the acceptability of these products by our customers has been amazing. We launched Audi A4 in the beginning of the year, and the last product that we launched last week was Audi Q5, and in between, we also launched five electric cars. We are one of the manufacturers in India who has launched the highest number of electric cars in India. From that point of view, the success of each of the products that we have launched this year talks about the volume growth that we have. While the industry has grown in the first 10 months at about 50%, we have grown over 130%. So that is the growth we are looking at, and I am sure with the new products that we have just launched – Audi Q5 and more products to come in the future – it is only going to get stronger even further.

You have been a market leader as far as electric cars are concerned. What has been the response to the premium electric car market?

We have launched our electric cars very recently – in the month of July is when we started. We have launched five cars as I mentioned earlier. Success has been outstanding I would say – even better than what we anticipated initially. The acceptability of electric mobility is a very positive feeler that we get from our customers. It is really heartening because when we interact with these customers, the kind of stories that we come across is really amazing. The people who are buying these cars have very positive things to talk about, whether they want to protect the environment for their future generations or they are accepting this new technology as an when it comes to India in spite of the fact that the cars are right now very expensive, or their family is kind of pushing them – even the children are asking their parents to buy electric cars going further. I think it has been a very positive story. The first lot of cars that we got into the country got sold off very quickly and then we got another lot that also got sold off – now we are taking future orders. With the current situation on semiconductors, it is a bit of a challenge to get more cars. We are requesting headquarters to actually give us more cars. Of course, we are in the luxury space where each of these cars is costing over 1 crore, so that limits the volumes in general. But the acceptability for that matter is really positive.

One of the things that I always appreciated is the fact that you are setting up charging points at your dealerships, and you have opened these up to all makes – any compatible car can use them. What prompted you to make such a move?

We have to understand we are in the very nascent stage of electric mobility in the country, and the success of electric mobility will not just be that if we are investing in this charging infrastructure we should only look inwards – we have to look outwards. What we are trying to do is not just the charging points at our dealerships across the country – some places we have already installed above 40 chargers and we are installing more – we are also using the dealerships of our group companies, for example, Volkswagen or Skoda, their dealerships as well – wherever they are situated at strategic locations where customers could need them, we are also installing the chargers there. We have made the chargers available to anybody to charge their cars. It has to be an open atmosphere where anybody can come and charge their cars. We also have a myAudi application, which any customer can download even if they are not an Audi customer, and see wherever the charging stations are – not just ours, but any charging station which is available closeby. So we are trying to contribute our bit to make electric mobility success in India. That is our endeavour. Of course, we represent a very small part of the industry – the luxury space is only about 1% of the automotive industry – but everybody has to come together, contribute, and be successful together. There will be a time when all of us will be successful and then we will compete with each other, but to start with we have to come together and hold hands, and make this a success for the country. The government is also pushing a lot on this topic and there are a lot of initiatives being taken on this subject, so I think all of us have to come together to be successful.

You have now launched the new Audi Q5, which has been a success since the day it was launched in India. You have also launched the new Audi A4. The Audi A6 and the new Audi A8 will probably come some time in the future, but you have also launched a lot of sports cars – the Audi RS 5, S5, RS 7, RS Q8. Do you see a market going forward for these kinds of cars?

In the last two-three years, we are seeing a very good uptake in the sports cars portfolio. We have been selling cars for over 12-13 years now. People who bought our SUVs for 70-80 lakh rupees five-six years ago need the next level of cars. A large population of India is young. There are a lot of young people who are becoming very successful with money by their side. They are willing to experiment, they are willing to find these cars, and a car is always an aspiration in the country. Every individual, male or female, wants to own a nice car and if it is a sports car, it is even better. We have gone to the extent that even in electric mobility we have got sports cars. We want to give a choice to our customers – whatever is available globally. If it makes positive business sense, we want to bring all the cars to the country so that customers can enjoy these cars. There is a positive uptake and that is the only reason that we are getting these cars. If we launch any car, we need to sustain that car through its life cycle, we have to train manpower, we have to keep spare parts for these cars – so we always think on those lines and build our business case, and only if it is positive do we launch these cars. All in all, it is a very positive experience that is just growing.

You talked about sustaining cars and training personnel, so have you grown Audi’s presence in India in terms of showrooms, and more importantly, service centres? Have you added to your network?

As you mentioned, servicing a car is most important, even more than sales in my opinion. In the past couple of years, we have increased our reach to 38 cities, and we have 41 service centres. By the end of this year, we will have 29 showrooms, and we will also have 14 Audi approved plus outlets, which is our pre-owned cars business. In our strategy 2025, we have a workshop-first approach. While you buy a car once every three, four or five years, you service your car on an annual basis. So the idea is to be closer to the customer as far as the workshops go. That has been our emphasis, so we have spread ourselves quite a bit through the country. For the next couple of years, whatever our volume aspirations are, this network is good enough to serve our customers. Apart from this, we also give doorstep services – we can pick and drop your cars. All those facilities are also available for our customers, even if they stay a little far away.

You mentioned Audi approved plus. How are customers accepting the concept of a pre-owned Audi?

For the past many years now, we have been focusing on this topic, and the focus is even more now. There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that we are able to give an experience of an Audi even before somebody buys a new car. The second aspect is our existing customers who have bought the cars in the past so many years – we want to give them an ease of selling their cars so that they can buy an Audi or any other car for that matter. This helps us also spread across the country in Tier-II and Tier-III towns where we can start with a pre-owned cars business and eventually get these customers to buy new cars. At the same time, dealership sustainability is also another profit vertical. We are able to improve the loyalty of our customers through these efforts. These customers can keep coming to us – they buy one car, they buy a second car, and then eventually throughout their life we want them to be loyal to us. It is an all-round positive measure for our customers, which is working very well. And last but not the least, today the challenge is not selling pre-owned cars, the problem is getting cars. We want to buy more pre-owned cars to sell them more. So demand is not a problem, supply is a problem.

You did mention a semiconductor shortage that hit your schedules for delivery of new cars to buyers.

Across the country, there is no manufacturer that has managed to escape this. There has definitely been some impact. So far, we were fine because our planning cycles are very long – between nine months to one year and sometimes even more. Our headquarters have been supporting us all this while. But there are challenges, and this is a developing situation – it is very difficult to predict for a long term. We do feel that the waiting period for some of our cars has gone up. If the car was available in a month’s time, it has gone up to two months’ time. Some custom-made cars which we used to get in about four months’ time are now taking six to seven months. So there are some challenges we definitely see.

During the pandemic, a lot of showrooms moved to digital selling. The new catchword was phy-gital – which is a combination of physical plus digital. Has Audi also moved to digitalisation in a big way?

I think it would not be wrong to say that we have been pioneering some of these topics for a very long time. We have been ahead of the curve in investing in digital initiatives, whether it is AR or VR, all these facilities are available. Through the myAudi application, you can buy cars – down payment, full payment, EMIs – and take 3D experiences of the car. Also, post-purchase if you want to book a service that is also available. You just book through your application on a computer or mobile. We have been investing in digitalisation quite a lot, and I always say that digitalisation is a journey, not a destination. So whatever we develop is already history. We need to keep on evolving the topic of digitalisation, and that has been our endeavor all this while. The pre-buying experience that customers take has gone up really high on digital, but eventually buying a luxury car is also a very emotional decision. So dealerships play a very critical role because there are many questions customers do have in their minds before they buy these cars. They want to see many models before they buy, along with their families. It is one of the big achievements – buying a luxury car in India. So it takes a bit of time, but I think it is a combination of both – while digital will play a key role, showrooms will also be a key component of the buying experience as far as luxury cars go.

Some of your competitors are now directly selling cars digitally and using the showroom just as a front for the customer, but the car sales and invoicing is controlled by them pan-India. They claim it gives them more control over pricing and maintaining inventory. Does Audi India plan something on similar lines, or does Audi India plan to empower the dealer and keep that gate open?

At present, we are continuing our network as it is and strengthening the network further to make it more sustainable because the network also needs profitability to be serving our customers. It is a two-way street. Happy dealers also mean happy customers, and vice-versa. At present, we will continue to work the way we are.

Coming back to the company, what are some of the green initiatives that have been taken besides of course electric cars?

As a group, we have multiple initiatives that we continue to take in and around our plant, whether it is generating green electricity or a couple of acres of land that our company has taken from the government to develop it and make it green. All these initiatives are a continuous process. Also, this sustainability goes up to the dealerships, wherever possible, if we can generate solar energy at the dealership. So we continue to do all these things whether it is at our dealerships, or at our office, or at our factories.

What is your personal vision for Audi in India? Where would you like to see the company, and how will you take it there?

It is public news now that Audi will be an electric car company one day, and my vision is to make it as early as possible. We want to be successful, but successful very holistically. Numbers are one of the success factors, not the only success factor. We want sustainable business for our partners, we want the happiest possible customers, and we want loyal customers. Doing so, we also want to be happy with our employees, our stakeholders, our suppliers, and our dealer partners. So, at the end of the day, sustainability all across – to be successful and make Audi an even stronger brand in times to come. That is my aspiration for Audi.