Tata Indica V2 Xeta: Competing in the Indian Small Car Market

Analysts also felt that the Xeta had the potential to change Indica's image as a diesel car brand. Xeta's success coincided with the growing attractiveness of India as a global hub for small cars.

This led to the entry of a number of domestic and foreign players into this segment, which resulted in intense competition in the growing Indian automobile market. (For an overview on the Indian automobile industry refer to Exhibit I). Some of the companies which planned to launch small cars in India in and after 2007 were General Motors India (GM)⁶, Fiat, Toyota Motors, Honda Motor Co., Skoda India, and Renault⁷.

On June 1, 1945, Tata Sons Limited (Tata Sons) bought the Tatanagar Shops (also called the Singbhum shops of the East Indian Railway) from the Government of India to manufacture steam locomotive boilers. It intended to extend its operations later to building complete locomotives and other engineering machinery. This project was set up as a new company by Tata Sons and was called the Tata Locomotive and Engineering Company Ltd. which was commonly known as Telco. Today, its manufacturing base is spread across India - in Jamshedpur (Jharkhand), Pune (Maharashtra), Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh), and Pantnagar (Uttarakhand)...