IOC expands portfolio of co-branded lubricants

Indian Oil Corp. Ltd. (IOC), India’s largest state-owned oil refiner and marketer, is expanding its portfolio of co-branded lubricants.

Recently, IOC has tied up with Tata Motors, one of India’s largest automakers, to launch a range of high-performance co-branded heavy-duty diesel engine oils for Tata’s commercial vehicles.

Co-branding is the culmination of the joint efforts by both companies to offer world-class diesel engine oils for their customers, IOC Executive Director (lubes) K.L. Murthy said.

Co-branding also provides IOC with a captive market for its Servo-branded lubricants. The Servo brand has a 20% market share in India’s automotive lubricants segment, according to Times of India. In the industrial lubricants segment, Servo has a 38% market share.

“The market has changed and every automaker is offering extended warranty. Indeed, they are pushing extended warranty of three to five years rather aggressively. This means this means that all servicing during this period is done at authorised service stations. Co-branding assures quality and meets the particular need of manufacturers,” Indrajit Bose, IOC executive director (branding and communications) told the Times of India.

IOC also has a co-branding arrangement with Maruti, India’s largest carmaker, Mahindra & Mahindra and Hyundai Motor in the passenger car segment and Ashok Leyland in the commercial vehicle segment.