Mahindra South Africa (MSA) was still positive about local assembly, but when this would happen was “difficult to answer”, said CEO Ashok Thakur this week.

“We have already done all the tests and trial assembly,” he noted.

However, Thakur said it would be prudent to wait for the South African new vehicle market to pick up to prerecession levels before taking the plunge on local assembly. He added that he would also like to see a stabilisation in policy, as well as clarity on new incentives, as government this year changes over from the Motor Industry Development Programme to the Automotive Production and Development Programme.

As to what route MSA would follow to local assembly, Thakur said there was spare production capacity available at existing plants in South Africa, while he also confirmed that the local arm of the Indian manufacturer had had talks with the developers of the proposed East London multimodel assembly plant.

Mahindra & Mahindra automotive and farm equipment international operations CEO Ruzbeh Irani added that MSA was currently only responsible for right-hand drive markets in Southern Africa, but that this could expand to the 40-plus countries in the sub-Saharan region, once MSA operations “reach a stable state” in South Africa.

“There is enough potential here in South Africa to focus on this market for the moment.”

Mahindra sold around 8 000 vehicles in Africa last year, with 4 105 of these in South Africa. 2012 newcomer to the Mahindra stable, SsangYong, added around 800 units to the local number, or between 15% to 17% of sales.

Korean-based manufacturer SsangYong sold around 4 800 vehicles in Africa last year, and hoped to grow this to 10 000 by 2016, said SsangYong marketing and sales VP Johng-Sik Choi.

Globally the brand aimed to grow from selling 120 000 vehicles in 2012 to 150 000 this year, and 310 000 units by 2016.

MSA planned to increase South African sales by around 50% this year, said Thakur, adding to the 102% growth achieved in 2012. This was expected to flow from increased brand building, new products, as well as a nationwide dealer network reaching 75 by the end of the year, up from the current 60.

The Mahindra Quanto small sports-utility vehicle (SUV) and Genio flatbed pick-up were scheduled to arrive in South Africa shortly, while MSA would also be extending the SsangYong product line-up during 2013 with the 11-seater Rodius.

Thakur was positive SsangYong, as a premium Korean SUV brand, could match Mahindra sales in South Africa in the next two years, and then grow to 5 000 units over the “next few years”.

Globally, Mahindra and SsangYong were working on developing two joint SUV platforms, with each led by either manufacturer. This followed the announcement of an investment programme of R700-million by new SsangYong owner Mahindra to increase production capacity and to develop new products.

However, said Irani, both platforms would see the production of Mahindra as well as SsangYong vehicles.

He expected to see the results of the joint development in the next three years.

Future product planning involved the introduction of four new SsangYong models by 2016.

“The XIV concept, which has been displayed in various forms at the Frankfurt, Geneva and Paris motor shows will evolve into SsangYong’s crossover utility vehicle (CUV) for launch early in 2015,” explained Choi.

“The next concept that will give further pointers to our styling and vehicle feature plans for the future is the SIV-1mid-size premium CUV, which was displayed at the recent Geneva Motor Show. Then we will also display a concept for a full-size SUV at the Seoul Motor Show, in Korea, at the end of March.”