Why Carlos Tavares is betting big on India

The CEO of Stellantis makes it clear that the company is here to stay and will fight it out to create aniche of its own. Hormazd Sorabjee, who was part of a select virtual roundtable in Chennai, says Carlos Tavares has a clearly defined blueprint for India and expects profits to double by 2030.

- Hormazd Sorabjee

Carlos Tavares is clearly someone who thinks long-term. The CEO of Stellantis is also a pragmatist who takes one thing at a time.

These two traits came through strongly during a recent virtual meeting with select Indian journalists in Chennai where Tavares dwelt upon the Jeep and Citroen brands, the imperatives of electrification, and why Stellantis was here to stay in this intensely competitive market.

As he reiterated, the company had drawn up a nine-year plan with three legs of three years each. "India will more than double the net revenues by far because we are growing our activity (in India). Of course, we want everybody to be above the double digits and we are ready today as a region in Asia-Pacific," he said.

Yet, it was quite clear that India as a market "is not yet ready because we are still growing our operations starting this year". However, he was confident that within a couple of years, Stellantis would have double digits margins as much as the rest of the region. "The rest of the region in Asia-Pacific is already significantly above the double digits and is committed to supporting the corporate goal that is to be completed inside of 2030," elaborated Tavares.

India as a region "is going to double its profits within this time" and in the second leg of the plan the progress will be "clearly visible to all of us". The confidence stems from the fact that a lot of preparation has gone into this exercise with arduous work carried out for many years on localization and vertical integration.

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