Volvo XC90 made in India - well, bolted together from Volvo CKD kits for the local market

Volvo XC90 made in India

The Volvo XC90 will be the first Volvo to be produced in India, with Volvo planning local assembly from CKD kits in Hoskote, near Bangalore, later this year.

Volvo’s new scalable product architecture has already catapulted Volvo from ‘almost premium’ to ‘proper premium’, first with the new 90 Series cars – XC90, V90 and S90 – and now with the arrival of the new XC60.

That success looks to continue as Volvo rolls out more new 60 Series models as well as the new compact platform XC40 (and probably V40 and S40 too), so they’re keen to have access to not just mature markets but fast growing ones too.

With China’s Geely holding the purse strings at Volvo, China’s still growing market is an important one for Volvo, but India has the potential to be just as important in the next decade. So Volvo has a plan.

Starting later this year, Volvo will start putting together cars at their plant in Hoskote, near Bangalore, initially with the XC90 but follow on from that with other models using the SPA.

The plan is to assemble from imported CKD (complete knockdown kits), although it seems likely Volvo will move to proper production when sales hit a sustainable level.

The premium car market in India is still small, although with huge potential, with around 28,000 sales last year – of which Volvo had around a 5 per cent share – and up is the only way it will go. And probably quite quickly.

Håkan Samuelsson, Volvo CEO, said:

I am pleased that as of this year we will be able to start selling Volvos that are Made in India.
Starting vehicle assembly in India is an important step for Volvo Cars as we aim to grow our sales in this fast-growing market and double our market share in the premium segment in coming years.

Sounds like a plan. It worked for Jaguar Land Rover.