Stellantis India expects the passenger vehicle (PV) industry to grow more than 5% this year, supported by stronger demand following the government’s GST 2.0 reforms, Managing Director and CEO Shailesh Hazela said.
“I would say that before GST, we were looking at hardly any growth in auto. But with GST reforms, the growth percentage will be more than 5% for autos for sure,” Hazela said. “The reforms have particularly boosted smaller cars, where people earlier sitting on the fence are now able to migrate from two-wheelers to four-wheelers.”
He said the demand lift was immediate. “We have all seen the demand for autos going up in the last eight days of September when GST reforms were implemented, and in October, and it is continuing.”
Stellantis, which sells Citroën, Jeep and Maserati in India, has benefited from the lower tax rate on cars. “We have a lot of cars which are below ₹13 lakh, so those have benefited. Even Jeep became competitive by 10% because of the reform,” Hazela said.
In October, Stellantis India reported wholesale volumes of 1,426 units, up sharply from 717 units a year earlier. Its retail sales were 1,306 units, nearly flat compared with 1,298 units a year ago.
Citroën, which sells the C3, ë-C3, Aircross, Basalt Coupe-SUV and C5 Aircross, has set an “immediate milestone” of reaching 2,000 monthly sales, followed by targets of 3,000 and 4,000 units. “The foundation is set, which includes engineering, manufacturing, supply chain and products,” Hazela said.
Expanding Footprint
Hazela said Stellantis is expanding its retail footprint aggressively. “When we launched the first C3, we were at 18. Today, we have 130 sales points for Citroën and 78 for Jeep, and about 75 service centres. Every month we are adding 7-8 sales points,” he said.
The company aims to reach 150 sales points by end-FY26, using a flexible, frugal network model. It is experimenting with showrooms, pop-up stores and used-car outlets as per the market. “For tier-four markets, it only makes sense to go with a one-car display. Tier three may be two. We do not want to create very large showrooms everywhere,” he said.
Stellantis currently covers 69% of India’s addressable population across metro, tier-I, tier-II, tier-III and tier-IV markets, according to Hazela. Over the last few months, the company has also revamped its dealership manpower and training processes to deliver the right experience to customers.
Stellantis globally houses 14 brands, including Jeep, Citroën, Fiat, Peugeot, Opel, Maserati, Chrysler and Dodge. India is expected to become Citroën’s second-largest market outside Europe by 2030.