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The Skoda Kodiaq, which debuted in India in 2017, completes its seventh anniversary in India. This is a feat Skoda Auto intends to celebrate with its customers. Between 18 July and 24 July, Skoda Auto is offering a 7 per cent advantage on the Kodiaq. Included in the offer is a complimentary two-year maintenance package, a complimentary fifth-year extended warranty and special financial offers.
Ed, Sirish Chandran sat down with Petr Janeba, Brand Director - Skoda India and got more details about the next-gen Kodiaq as well.
“India is an important market for Skoda outside of Europe, now after China and Russia are not our focus markets anymore, we still keep on investing here and we will as well invest in the parts and components business of the new Kodiaq. It just hit the streets, the new one in Europe. It will come within a year to India as well.
So the new Kodiaq is about to come to India because the first one was a success and the new one will be even more successful. There is one more year to go.”
“We are getting this question very often and the answer is very simple. We understand there is still a lot of potential and we understand that our competitors in the segment are still embracing diesel a lot, some of them even more than 50 per cent of their total volume. We are not able to bring the diesel in the parts and components business."
"We are able to bring the diesel in the CBU car. So, it would be an exclusive product. We are planning to do it, but it would take a little bit more time. So, give us this time, go for a challenge with this special offer now, and I think diesel still has a life in India. Probably not in the capital city but somewhere else there are a lot of people who are still keen on buying diesel and our diesels are the good ones so we are definitely not going to miss this opportunity. However, with the CBU the opportunity will be really more exclusive and small in volume.”
“The current Kodiaq, this is a car which has basically moved Skoda a lot forward. The most iconic and most expensive car of the brand, which was always sold in Europe. However Kodiaq overcame all these expectations and we always thought that Kodiaq would be below the Superb but it actually moved the brand far above the Superb. It even started to be a very retail car in Europe, which is very rare.”
“Apparently, it has a very long-lasting design which helps the car to keep the traction all the time so that it has a very stable life cycle. This is again something that we are not getting used to in India because everybody expects the novelties but still if you take a look at Kodiaq sales, we were very much keeping a stable sale. Even now some people say this car is the last car and there is already a new one coming but still there are a lot of people buying and some of the people who are new to Skoda family and we know them from the dealers they are saying like I have never considered Skoda until I found this car and I'm very happy I found it. So, these two stories basically help the new customers explore the Skoda brand from inside.”
“Of course, the logistics and calculation of the parts and components and as well to comply with the local content where we already have something like a 2.0 engine ready in Chhatrapati Sambhajhajinagar. But there are more things to come because we want to utilize the local solutions from some other manufacturers in order to make the car more accessible for the people but this is only about to come so the project always takes a little bit more time.”
“Because of having the Kodiaq in India for seven years we finally wanted to have a small celebration to give something more to all the customers and allow even more customers to explore the Skoda brand with this iconic car and for everybody who loves safety, who love features, who love technology and long-lasting design, this is a great car to explore. Four-wheel drive, 2.0, locally before for any other car, but we think Kodiaq really deserves to do it. So ,we do it for Kodiaq now. We will now start to talk about the car and once we finish the story, what all the great features the Kodiaq has on 18 July until 24 July will be seven days of online special festive offer which the customers can enjoy.”
“Seven is a very special lucky number in Europe and hopefully in India as well. However, seven years in India means seven percent of customer advantages out of the already good Kodiaq price. I think this is a fair proposal just to attract some more customers to enjoy this festive proposition now in this period.”
