Jeep India announces tie-up with Axis bank to introduce Jeep Financial services
Jeep India, which is a widely known sport utility vehicle manufacturer has recently announced a strategic tie-up with India’s third-largest private lender bank, Axis Bank to introduce their financial services allowing their customers from Jeep vehicles access to credit that will be affordable by their customers. The decision has been taken to provide support to the Jeep business’ growth and the rise in their potential increasing customer base. Dealers of the brand Jeep India will also experience a level of benefit from this tie-up in terms of getting special interest rates and also experience a more seamless retail process. With this partnership, it is very clear that both Axis Bank and Jeep India will get access to each other’s growing customer base and this is beneficial for both the companies as a part of this partnership. Jeep India’s customer base will be able to benefit from Axis Bank’s services that are spread over about a total of 4586 branches spread all over India.
When looked back, it seems that the growth of the sales of the passenger vehicles has been to a great extent considering the revival of the economic activities which had been restricted earlier due to the nationwide lockdown because of the sudden arrival of the pandemic. With the economic revival, every business started opening up and people started moving out of their houses, and with this need for mobility, came the need for personal vehicles. So at a time when the sentiments of the customers had taken a back seat considering the pandemic and the economic shutdowns, the need for affordable finance schemes becomes even more vital for sales maximization.
According to Partha Datta who is a managing director at FCA India Automobiles, The financial services by Jeep India will help make SUVs from Jeep be more accessible than before to its Indian customers. The tie-up is quite strategic and will help strengthen the retail process and make the purchase process more efficient and ready for optimization. The partnership is completely customer-centric and it is complementary to their go-local strategy.
A little history about Jeep
The history of Jeep dates long back to the 1940s, just when world war 2 was starting. At that time American army was using cars as their vehicles for the military, however, at that time they did not call these “Jeeps”, the first vehicle that was called “Jeep” was introduced in the year 1950 on the 13th of June when the name was trademarked by Willys-Over. Three years hence, the Jeep company was bought up by Henry J. Kaiser from Willys-Overland. The company was then rebranded to Willy Motors, Inc. Throughout the next ten years, the company kept changing names until it was finally called Kaiser Jeep Corporation.
Seven years hence, the company was bought again by the American Motors Corporation for about 75 million USD. Jeep stayed with the American Motors Corporation from the year 1970 to 1987.
In the year 1987, the 1st-gen wrangler series was replaced by the CJ series. Also, American Motors Corporation sold a massive amount of its share to Chrysler, of which the brand Jeep was also a part. With time, Chrysler was undergoing huge losses in terms of their entire business and by the year 2009, bankruptcy was declared by the company under Chapter Eleven.
Five years later, Fiat became the savior of the company, buying all of the shares of Chrysler (that also included Jeep), merged the two companies to make the brand ‘Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles’. So basically, if you had to do any sort of deal with Jeep, you were supposed to partner with FCA, that is nothing but Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.
Currently, FCA is an Italian American company that has become one of the leading automobile manufacturers across the world. Most Jeeps are manufactured in America, however, FCA US LLC has their manufacturing plants in various other countries as well. In India, Jeeps are produced by the FCA India Automobiles.
The first few completely built units of Jeep Wrangler and Jeep Grand Cherokee were introduced in India and then the company started investing to start the production of Jeep in India by forming a joint venture with Tata Motors has invested about 280 million USD.
When we talk about Jeep Wranglers, in particular, we should know that they are only made in a plant that is based in Toledo in Ohio, also called the Toledo Assembly Complex. The plant employs about six thousand workers and is spread over an area of about 300 acres. Initially, this plant was a Stickney plant and later on, in 1981, it was converted into a car manufacturing plant by the American Motors Corporation. Chrysler was seen to be using the Toledo complex when it bought the American Motors Corporation in the year 1987. So, that becomes one of the reasons why Toledo is considered the birthplace of Jeep Wranglers.
When talking about Jeeps and their production in India, the only car that is completely built here is the Jeep Compass. So when you step into any Jeep showroom, the sole vehicle, that is built completely in India, that you will find is Jeep Compass.
