July 2009 Indian Car Sales Figures & Analysis

[kvish]

Toyota is finally notch above Honda!. The timing is ripe for Fortuner launch and the yaris ( I hope they learn something from Honda pricing). Honda better be worried with the Jazz numbers. 1000 cars a month for their most anticipated hatch is nothing to write home about.

Well, Fiat sold more cars than ford! Who would have thought that would happen 12 months ago!

[deepakhon]

I see a co-relation between Linea price hike and declining sales.

[musicvj]

Originally Posted by deepakhon

I see a co-relation between Linea price hike and declining sales.

I don't think so, the price increase wasn't astronomical. Honeymoon period and initial excitement is over and now getting back to reality.

Linea sale might settle in this range unless Fiat does something different with their sales options and commercials. Probably give freebies, extended warranties, coupla more add on's. But these are too early IMHO.

[amit]

Originally Posted by deepakhon

I see a co-relation between Linea price hike and declining sales.

When I was taking delivery of my Punto, dealer said a few customers had switched from Linea to Punto so it could be the Punto effect. I am guessing a few Linea Dynamic PK and Emotion buyers may have switched to Punto Emotion PK.

As a comparision to Fiat lethargy, Honda had full page adverts during Raksha Bandhan encoraging brothers to gift a Jazz to their sister on the 'auspicious occasion.' They must be targetting some real rich brothers!

[pmbabu]

Originally Posted by VahanPujari

If you look at ANHC, it has dropped from 6040 in Mar'09 to 3268 in July'09 - drop of 2772 cars (whopping 46%).

IIRC, Honda announced a price increase for ANHC from Apr '09 (the announcement was made in Mar '09). That should have contributed to those high numbers in Mar '09.

[deepakhon]

Originally Posted by musicvj

I don't think so, the price increase wasn't astronomical.

It is not about price hike being astronomical. I personally know of a few people who cancelled their bookings after the hike, though it might sound marginal. It is not that they would not have paid 10k more, but the hike itself put them off the product.

As Amit says, Punto effect also can not be ruled out. Also, I agree that Fiat virtually is not advertising Linea at all.

[VahanPujari]

Originally Posted by pmbabu

IIRC, Honda announced a price increase for ANHC from Apr '09 (the announcement was made in Mar '09). That should have contributed to those high numbers in Mar '09.

Could be.
For that matter, Linea prices also increased from 1st Apr'09 & people wanted to get the car at old prices ('yours truly' included)

Anyways, March & Sept car sales figures would always be higher than normal due to depreciation effect.

[JVH]

Another reason I can think of apart from marketing is the customer interface.

Most of the prospective customers (my colleagues) were really ***ed off at the shabby treatment by the sales execs. Someone in the forum pointed out that they fail to distinguish between Indicab and Linea customers. How true? They went ahead and booked ANHC. Atleast 3 of them.

I am looking forward to FIAT numbers during the coming festive season. Let us see if Rajeev Kapoor is really getting takeaways from his various dealership visits.

[amit]

It would be great if we could have Jaguar and LR sales figures. I think I read in ACI that Tata's are selling an average of 1 Jaguar everyday.

The executive segment is BMW 3 and Merc C class right? 77 3 series compared to 192 C class?! VW sold 61 Passat's. That's almost as many E class that Mercedes sold. Time to expand the number of VW dealerships I guess.

[opendro]

Originally Posted by deepakhon

As Amit says, Punto effect also can not be ruled out. Also, I agree that Fiat virtually is not advertising Linea at all.

Exactly. Even after I own Linea for six months, I still doubt if my neighbours yet know there is some Fiat car named Linea

They need to put up some big hoarding boards. People will see them at least during traffic jams when they have nothing else to do.

[nurni76]

Originally Posted by opendro

They need to put up some big hoarding boards. People will see them at least during traffic jams when they have nothing else to do.

I have been seeing full page ads in news papers and car magazines of Linea and Punto. Typically, hoardings are used by companies when they launch a new product or there is an offer happening. Linea has already completed 7 months of being in the market and hoardings now may not really make economic sense now. However, companies with a lot of money can afford to do this across the year.

However, I don't think just advertising is going to help beyond a point. Ads can create awareness of a new product and help create a brand image. But, buying a car is a high involvement exercise and consumer looks at several aspects of the car. There needs to be a 360 degree exercise from Fiat by tapping multiple customer touchpoints (Media, Dealer showrooms, customer service, CRO interaction etc). In case of car purchase, influence by near and dear ones, word of mouth from friends etc play a critical role. So, it is not easy for any company with a historic baggage of Poor A** to just wipe away that with increased advertising. It requires concerted effort across the multiple touchpoints.

Besides aggressive pricing (VFM pricing) isn't helping the bottomline for Fiat to afford aggressive advertising. For any company that operates with lower margins ( I am assuming Fiat with great feature offerings will have lower margins as they don't charge a premium compared to Hyundai or a Honda), volumes should offset the lower margins. Unfortunately, for Fiat this has not happened and that would have lead to cut down of their ad budgets. So, it is tough for Fiat going forward as it is chicken and Egg situation for them. Should they spend more on Marketing to drive volumes or should they maintain margins with current volumes? This is a puzzle they need to solve at the earliest.

[devarshi84]

Originally Posted by SkyWalker

Marketshare don't mean a thing unless u compare it in a segment. 3295 of them came from spark - which is a much lower segment car. Compare in the right segment - Aveo sold 253 compared to City's 3268 and Optra sold 181 compared to Civic 299 and Altis's 801. Hardly comparable numbers.

Besides if you compare that way you can say GM is better than BMW as they have a better market-share

That's what car makers and the industry looks at. Why do you think we consider Maruti as the no.1 carmaker even though 70-80% of its sales come from hatchbacks below 4metres? Why do we say that Linea beat Corolla and Civic in sales?

[Pragmites]

All said and done, Fiat has spent a fair amount on TV advertising and Hoardings. You have Yuvraj Singh with his shawl at every nook and corner, not to mention in every TV commercial break. Admittedly Linea advertising has stopped but they did have a very long spell of the child pulling his dad away from the Linea admiration. The Linea ads did continue in the local press right through June and July.

I think it is their past that continues to haunt them but I am meeting more and more people who are impressed with Linea/Punto, but not all are going to rush to the showroom and change their existing wheels. I know several who plan to in the next 6 months.

[oss]

Originally Posted by nurni76

........So, it is tough for Fiat going forward as it is chicken and Egg situation for them. Should they spend more on Marketing to drive volumes or should they maintain margins with current volumes? This is a puzzle they need to solve at the earliest.

Sell 1.6 & 1.9 MJD engines at fat premium to Maruti and use that margin to splurge on ads for Linea & Punto

If not anything i am sure SX4 Diesel would atleast hurt ANHC sale big time, and force Honda to add some features in ANHC.

Hope Fiat doesn't choose the first part alone, of selling just the engines and stop being a car maker in the Indian market

[achinthg]

Reasons for poor Linea sales:
1. Increase in ex-showroom price by 10k
2. Reduction in corporate discount by 5k
3. No more free extended warranty worth 5k
4. Punto launch - why pay 2 lakh more for a boot?
5. Zero Linea commercials on TV - only Punto - out of sight, out of mind