Iran’s giant automaker boosts production by 28%

Iran-Khodro, the Middle-East’s largest car-manufacturing company, announced that it has produced more than 351,270 sets of cars in the first half of the current Iranian year (started on March 21), which shows 28% of growth compared with the same period last year.

“A sum of 58,139 sets of Samand in different models, 101,442 sets of Peugeot 405, 38,823 sets of Pars, 8,071 sets of Tondar 90 and 20,886 sets of Roa – all sedans – have been produced by IKCO during this period,” IKCO Deputy Managing-Director for Production Affairs Javad Dehnadi said.

“Some 75,014 Peugeot 206 sedans and hatchbacks, 46,542 Bardo pick-ups and 2,353 sets of Suzuki Grand Vitara SUV have been produced in the same period as well,” Dehnadi added.

“The total number of passenger car and pick-up production amounted to 273,000 sets in the first half of the previous year,” he reminded.

IKCO plans to accelerate production to 785,000 sets by the end of the current Iranian year.

Iran’s state-owned Iran-Khodro is the largest carmaker in the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa, with an annual production of more than one million vehicles of various models, including cars, trucks, minibuses and buses.

IKCO is also ramping up exports as it builds a global presence outside Iran.

The company officials have said they want to boost annual production to more than a million vehicles and hike exports to more than 600,000 by 2016.

IKCO in the past two years has also begun kit assemblies in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Venezuela and Argentina, with plans to add assembly in Egypt, Vietnam and China in the next year or two.

The vehicle of choice for most of these local assembly operations is the Samand, a compact sedan based heavily on the Peugeot 405 platform and with the price starting at about $9,000. “Samand” is the Persian name for a local breed of horse.

Market observers believe that Samand could challenge future Chinese and Indian imports at the low end of the market.

Samand trade name is now registered at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

Iran-Khodro group, the Iranian car manufacturer and owner of Samand, is the first Iranian company whose product is registered at the WIPO.

The state will ensure against the fraudulent use of the name, industrial design, and copying of the product manufactured by the company worldwide.

Many other world countries, including Turkey, Bangladesh and Pakistan are considered as established importers of petrol and gas-powered Samand models with left and right-hand steering-wheels.