Ankush Arora (left), vice-president (sales and after sales) of GM India, with Kari Slym, president and MD of GM India, in Calcutta on Monday. Picture by Kishor Roy Chowdhury

Calcutta, Jan. 14: General Motors India plans to launch its used car business at around June this year. The company had earlier planned to launch it last year.

GM is also close to finalising its plans to manufacture engines and may not opt for a joint venture.

“We are going to start our pre-owned (used) car business hopefully by the middle of this year. Our existing distribution network will be used to roll out the business,” said Ankush Arora, vice-president (sales and after sales), GM India.

At present, there are more than two lakh GM cars on Indian roads. Maruti, Hyundai Motor, Ford India and Honda Siel Cars are already present in this business.

In 2005-06, the used-car market in the country was around 8.8 lakh. In 2006-07, the market grew by 30 per cent, crossing sales of one million. Only 8 per cent to 10 per cent of the market in India is organised. Organised players include manufacturers, used car dealers and brokers.

In a largely unorganised market, organised car dealers find it more difficult to make a sales pitch on used cars as customer demand some value addition from them.

Industry estimates said nearly 10 million used cars are now up for sale.

The Indian pre-owned car market is being eyed by luxury car makers such as Porsche and Bentley. Toyota Kirloskar also had plans to launch their used car business last year.

Market share

GM plans to raise its market share from 3.2 per cent (passenger car and commercial vehicle combined) to a little over four per cent.

Its market share in passenger cars is set to increase from nine to 12 per cent this year.

The US auto major plans to sell 90,000 units this year against 60,000 sold in the last year.