End of The Road For Mitsubishi Pajero Sport and Outlander?
Late last year, several media reports surfaced online about the revival of Mitsubishi in India. The automaker was absent from the Indian market from January 2020. Mitsubishi and its partner Hindustan Motor Finance Corporation Limited (HMFCL) were reportedly planning to partner with a component maker from Jamshedpur. This deal involved the component maker taking control from HMFCL and directly communicating with the Japanese carmaker. The second innings of Mitsubishi was all set to begin in India, but recent updates indicate that this tie-up has now fallen through.
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Mitsubishi was expecting some fresh investment after getting into the partnership with Jamshedpur-based automotive company. Now, after the talks of partnership getting dissolved, HMFCL has to look out for a new partner or the company will have to shut shop for good.
With the company struggling in India financially, it is on the edge of being shut down. Right now, HMFCL has only six employees, and they have no functional retail outlets. All their 11 showrooms around India are inactive. Moreover, some former dealerships also reported that HMFCL has not refunded their dealer deposit. That’s why a couple of dealers are now planning to take possible legal action against HMFCL. The dealers also complained about the scarcity of spare parts because HMFCL has no funds to import them from Japan.
Recently, a company spokesperson has denied all the reports and has said that the carmaker is currently working on new BS6 models, which are likely to hit our shores in the coming months. He also said that the development of these models got delayed because of the ongoing situation. As per the company’s spokesperson, the carmaker is all set to initiate Mitsubishi-HMFCL business in our country soon. The last Mitsubishi car retailed in our market was Pajero Sport in January 2020. The automaker only sold 30 cars between April 2019 and January 2020. While it sold 164 cars between April 2018 and January 2019. Right now, there are around 20 dealerships around India to take care of the aftersales services. We expect the carmaker to reveal its plans for India in the coming months.
Stay tuned to IndianAutosBlog.com for more Mitsubishi updates and other four-wheeler news.
