Volvo Car India started almost a decade back, as the safest car manufacturer in the world with technology that was revolutionary at that time.

In that timeframe, Volvo slowly but steadily has been emerging from the shadows of the three German brands to make a cornerstone for itself. Volvo has always been so focused on safety, functionality in its products that it sometimes overlooked design and aesthetics to make way for safety. Also, competing with the likes of Mercedes and VW (read Audi) in terms, of after-service, service stations, workshops, dealerships proved a challenge one too-many.

Fast forward to 2018, not only Volvo has managed to make some of the head turning cars with exemplary design but also has shown its intent on investing in India. To begin with, the design language, look and feel of their products has taken a complete revolutionary change for the better. Take the world car of the year 2018 (Compact SUV)- XC40 for instance. The XC40 with its sporty design, endless safety list of features, sweet spot pricing and perfect marketing tools have been a step ahead of the three German brands in its category.

If with such a strong product line, there was any chink in the armour of this Swede was the service and dealership network which still needed a revamp. Well that was a year back. Just this year alone, Volvo has managed to launch number of workshops and dealerships in the country, showing us how much important the Indian market is for them. The XC40 sales got new wind with the launch of 5 new showrooms across the country in Calicut, Raipur, Kolkata and South- Mumbai. All of this has seemed to have paid-off substantially for the Swedish Automaker as well.

Volvo Cars India recently in its annual report, registered a sales growth of 25% for the FY 2018-2019. Compared to last year. This can be credited to the outstanding sales of the Volvo XC40, but also the fact that somewhere Volvo’s overall India strategy is going right.

Across the boardroom, Mr Charles Frump, MD Volvo Car India was quoted saying that ““We had a strong performance in the last Financial year because of greater customer demand for our award winning products and new dealer openings. We continue to be optimistic about the future, but are somewhat cautious about the year ahead owing to external factors and predictions of an impending downtrend.”

What remains to be seen in the second half of 2019 though is can Volvo continue the high- volume game especially when the three German rivals have a series of new car launches up their sleeve to leverage upon from.