Skoda Auto India is pushing for rapidly expanding its touchpoint (dealerships, showrooms and service centres) across the country. From 120 touchpoints in 2021 it grew to about 200 by the end of 2024 and 315 across 177 cities now.

Skoda Auto India brand director Ashish Gupta, said he expects the network to grow to 400 touchpoints by the end of the year. He was speaking on the sidelines of the opening of two facilities in partnership with Sanwaria Automotive (SPL Skoda), a showroom in Salt Lake Sector V and a sales and aftersales facility at Algaria, Barasat.

Over the last year or so, Skoda has doubled of its marketshare in India from 0.8 per cent to 1.7 per cent now, putting it at seventh spot by volume among Indian carmakers. Much of the growth has been driven by the Kylaq small SUV Skoda introduced in March this year. It is accounting for over 60 per cent of its sales now and, in the nine months to September the company has sold about 53,000 vehicles.

Skoda now has the Octavia RS rollout in the pipeline but it would not be made in India.

Gupta also said that the company is evaluating the rollout of an electric car and the target date for that is 2027-28. That is by when Gupta said Skoda expects the EV market to grow to 10-12 per cent of the the Indian market from about 5 per cent currently. He also expects the ecosystem around BEVs to evolve further by that time. The growth of the market would create a supplier base, the CAFE norms governing EVs would be in their final shape by then, and the charging infrastructure would be in place too, he said.

Skoda sells the Elroq and Enyaq electric SUVs globally.