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Official Site: Mahindra.com
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History
The following section is an excerpt from Wikipedia's Mahindra & Mahindra page on 24 January 2017, text available via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Mahindra and Mahindra Limited (M&M) is an Indian multinational automobile manufacturing corporation headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It is one of the largest vehicle manufacturers by production in India and the largest manufacturer of tractors in the world. It is a part of Mahindra Group, an Indian conglomerate.
It was ranked 21st on a list of top companies in India by Fortune India 500 in 2011.
Its major competitors in the Indian market include Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland and others.
Mahindra & Mahindra was set up as a steel trading company in 1945 in Ludhiana as Mahindra & Mohammed by brothers K.C. Mahindra and J.C. Mahindra and Malik Ghulam Mohammed. After India gained independence and Pakistan was formed, Mohammed emigrated to Pakistan. The company changed its name to Mahindra & Mahindra in 1948. It eventually saw a business opportunity in expanding into manufacturing and selling larger MUVs, starting with the assembly under licence of the Willys Jeep in India. Soon established as the Jeep manufacturers of India, the company later commenced manufacturing light commercial vehicles (LCVs) and agricultural tractors. Today, Mahindra & Mahindra is a key player in the utility vehicle manufacturing and branding sectors in the Indian automobile industry with its flagship Mahindra XUV500 and uses India's growing global market presence in both the automotive and farming industries to push its products in other countries.
Over the past few years, the company has taken interest in new industries and in foreign markets. They entered the two-wheeler industry by taking over Kinetic Motors in India. M&M also has a controlling stake in the REVA Electric Car Company and acquired South Korea's SsangYong Motor Company in 2011. In 2010–11 M&M entered in micro drip irrigation with the takeover of EPC Industries Ltd in Nashik.
Mahindra & Mahindra, branded on its products usually as 'Mahindra', produces SUVs, saloon cars, pickups, commercial vehicles, and two wheeled motorcycles and tractors. It owns assembly plants in India, Mainland China (PRC), the United Kingdom, and has three assembly plants in the United States. Mahindra maintains business relations with foreign companies like Renault SA, France.
M&M has a global presence and its products are exported to several countries. Its global subsidiaries include Mahindra Europe S.r.l. based in Italy, Mahindra USA Inc., Mahindra South Africa and Mahindra (China) Tractor Co. Ltd.
Mahindra started making passenger vehicles firstly with the Logan in April 2007 under the Mahindra Renault joint venture. M&M made its maiden entry into the heavy trucks segment with the Mahindra Truck and Bus Division, the joint venture with International Truck, USA.
Mahindra produces a wide range of vehicles including MUVs, LCVs and three wheelers. It manufactures over 20 models of cars including larger, multi-utility vehicles like the Scorpio and the Bolero. It formerly had a joint venture with Ford called Ford India Private Limited to build passenger cars.
At the 2008 Delhi Auto Show, Mahindra executives said the company was pursuing an aggressive product expansion program that would see the launch of several new platforms and vehicles over the next three years, including an entry-level SUV designed to seat five passengers and powered by a small turbodiesel engine. True to their word, Mahindra & Mahindra launched the Mahindra Xylo in January 2009, selling over 15,000 units in its first six months.
Also in early 2008, Mahindra commenced its first overseas CKD operations with the launch of the Mahindra Scorpio in Egypt, in partnership with the Bavarian Auto Group. This was soon followed by assembly facilities in Brazil. Vehicles assembled at the plant in Bramont, Manaus, include Scorpio Pik Ups in single and double cab pick-up body styles as well as SUVs.
Mahindra planned to sell the diesel SUVs and pickup trucks starting in late 2010 in North America through an independent distributor, Global Vehicles USA, based in Alpharetta, Georgia. Mahindra announced it would import pickup trucks from India in knockdown kit (CKD) form to circumvent the Chicken tax. CKDs are complete vehicles that were assembled in the U.S. from kits of parts shipped in crates. On 18 October 2010, however, it was reported that Mahindra had indefinitely delayed the launch of vehicles into the North American market, citing legal issues between it and Global Vehicles after Mahindra retracted its contract with Global Vehicles earlier in 2010, due to a decision to sell the vehicles directly to consumers instead of through Global Vehicles. However, a November 2010 report quoted John Perez, the CEO of Global Vehicles USA, as estimating that he expected Mahindra's small diesel pickups to go on sale in the U.S. by spring 2011, although legal complications remained, and Perez, while hopeful, admitted that arbitration could take more than a year. Later reports suggested that the delays may be due to Mahindra scrapping the original model of the truck and replacing it with an upgraded one before selling them to Americans. In June 2012, a mass tort lawsuit was filed against Mahindra by its American dealers, alleging the company of conspiracy and fraud.
Mahindra & Mahindra has a controlling stake in Mahindra Reva Electric Vehicles. In 2011, it also gained a controlling stake in South Korea's SsangYong Motor Company.
Mahindra launched its relatively heavily publicised SUV, XUV500, code named as W201 in September 2011. The new SUV by Mahindra was designed in-house and it was developed on the first global SUV platform that could be used for developing more SUVs. In India, the new Mahindra XUV 500 came in a price range between ₹1,140,000–1,500,000. The company was expected to launch 3 products in 2015 (2 SUVs and 1 CV) and an XUV 500 hybrid. Mahindra's two wheeler segment launched a new scooter in the first quarter of 2015. Besides India, the company also targeted Europe, Africa, Australia and Latin America for this model. Mahindra President Mr. Pawan Goenka stated that the company planned to launch six new models in the year. The company launched the CNG version of its mini truck Maxximo on 29 June 2012. A new version of the Verito in diesel and petrol options was launched by the company on 26 July 2012 to compete with Maruti's Dzire and Toyota Kirloskar Motor's Etios.
On 30 July 2015, Mahindra released sketches of a new compact SUV called the TUV300 slated to be launched on 10 September 2015. The TUV300 design took cues from a battle tank and used a downsized version of the mHawk engine found on the XUV500, Scorpio and some models of the Xylo. This new engine was christened as the mHawk80.
