MINI Launches Countryman C Petrol SUV in India; Aims to Double Sales Volumes This Year

British heritage brand MINI on Wednesday launched the Countryman C, a locally assembled petrol-powered SUV, at an introductory price of ₹47.50 lakh (ex-showroom). In a media interaction, Hardeep Singh Brar, President and CEO, BMW Group India , spoke to Narayanan V about MINI’s growth ambitions, localisation strategy, electric vehicle adoption in the luxury car market, and the company’s outlook for FY27. Edited excerpts: From an overall BMW portfolio perspective, MINI is very crucial because we have never crossed 1,000 units in sales. The best we have done is about 700-800 units. Last year, MINI sold 730 units, and this year we want to double those volumes. So, you can understand what it means to really double MINI volumes in India. India is an SUV country. A lot of people are shifting to SUVs, and earlier we only had the electric vehicle in that segment. Our portfolio now has the MINI Hatch and Convertible (Cooper) and Countryman SUV. The second factor was pricing. When you have an electric vehicle priced at around ₹62 lakh, it becomes prohibitive. Somewhere beyond ₹50 lakh, people start feeling it is too much. We wanted better pricing, and that could only be achieved through localisation. That is why we localised the Countryman and arrived at this pricing. The MINI network will double by the end of this year. We are adding 10 new touchpoints across eight new cities. By the end of 2026, MINI will be present in 21 outlets across 19 cities. Yes, absolutely. A lot of diesel customers are now switching to electric vehicles. What diesel customers wanted was better fuel efficiency for long-distance driving and strong torque for highway overtaking. Electric vehicles are a very good replacement for diesel because our EVs offer a range of over 500 km and deliver very good torque. So, electric vehicles are slowly and gradually replacing diesel cars, which is why we are also increasing our EV supplies this year. However, 70-75% of luxury vehicle demand is still petrol, which is why we have brought the Countryman (petrol SUV) here. We are going with customer demand. For MINI, EVs already account for about 30% of sales. We were wondering whether that share would come down because petrol demand could increase following this launch. For BMW , EVs accounted for 21% of sales last year. This year, that has already increased to 26%. We are following the trend. Nobody anticipated demand would move to these levels so quickly. Demand has already gone to around 30%, but supplies cannot change overnight. So now we are looking at how we can increase supplies. Some completely built units (CBUs) and certain components are stuck around the Strait of Hormuz, which is delaying supplies. We receive a lot of CKD and SKD kits through that route, and some of our fully imported M series cars are also affected. However, we work with lead times of around six months, which is why we tend to stock up slightly more. So, for now, we are sorted. Had the disruption continued beyond two or three weeks, it would have had an impact. The India-EU FTA is still about a year-and-a-half away from implementation, which means it could come into effect around the beginning of 2028. Even then, it will start with a 40% import duty. Most of the cars we produce here are already at a 15% duty structure. The duty will gradually come down from 40% to 30%, then 20%. So it will be another five years before we really start seeing meaningful benefits. From where we are today, significant changes will probably be visible only by 2031. We will relook at our strategy as the agreement progresses. Two years ago, we sold around 15,000 cars. Last year, we sold 18,000 cars. This year, we are looking to cross 20,000 units. We grew 17% in the first quarter, and the trend looks very similar in the second quarter. If we end the first half with around 15% growth, then on last year’s base of 18,000 cars, we will definitely cross 20,000 units. At present, we have manufacturing capacity for up to 50,000 vehicles, so there is sufficient headroom for growth. This year, we plan to launch 26 models. In the first half alone, we are launching about 12 models. Out of the 26, around 10 are major updates or significant model changes. We have already launched the X6 and the M440i. Practically every month, we are introducing one or two products, and we will continue with this pace through the rest of the year.