Submitted by CARPE DIEM

NEW DELHI: General Motors Corp. opened its first design studio in India on Thursday, a move intended to support the U.S. automaker’s efforts to expand its presence in the country.

The studio in the southern Indian city of Bangalore, where GM already has a research and development center, will “contribute to the mid-cycle enhancement of existing models and the advanced design of future products,” the company said.

The studio, which will initially have about 60 employees, comes at a time when GM is having some success after struggling for years to penetrate the Indian car market.

The company introduced the low-cost Chevrolet Spark this year (pictured above), which is proving popular among young buyers. In the past seven months, the U.S. automaker has sold nearly 2 1/2 times the number of cars it sold in the country in the same period last year.

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