[400notout]

I have only one question. Do we know of any market where Honda has shut shop?

I do believe the Japs and Americans are very different when it comes to business culture. It would be very interesting to see how they move on from Here. For an American company we should have seen some facelift test mules by now

[iamahunter]

Honda has not shut shop, yet! However their products aren't any competent either. I wish they come back to their glory days when they just had the City, Civic and Accord in India and Honda was not a mass market brand!

I think Honda failed when they started focusing on numbers more than products. Features started disappearing, quality started degrading. The first-gen Jazz had such wonderful features list, reclining rear seats, the magic seats - that would turn into a bed, a boot that could gulp more than a Civic's boot!
Civic, which had got the best looks and could go better than she looked, while the Accord with that V6 was a fast and comfortable cruising machine, while City was literally the all-rounder!

I never doubted their engines have been amongst the best, wish they come up with a refreshing portfolio soon!

[Ehsank78]

TVS Sundaram Motors’ property on Anna Salai in Chennai is up for sale. This houses the Honda Showroom and service center in the heart of the city.

Is this the beginning of the end for Honda?

[theAutomaniac]

While I'm not sure about Honda India's plans, this pic below defines the miserable condition of Honda dealers very well!

[sunikkat]

Originally Posted by theAutomaniac

While I'm not sure about Honda India's plans, this pic below defines the miserable condition of Honda dealers very well!

Attachment 2272413

I guess this should be Hyundai’s multi brand used cars sale and hence they will be using the same placard irrespective of the brand they sell

[ScorpioYadav]

Originally Posted by GTO

IMHO, Honda India might shrink their portfolio and cost structure to become a smaller & leaner company. More focus on profitability, basically. But I don't think the brand will exit India.

While shrinking their portfolio can work out better for Honda but such a strategy isn’t ideal for their dealerships as it results in reduced footfalls for only those specific products which are on offer.

Of course, it frees the dealers’ money from maintaining inventories of non-moving models. But a dealer would rather have an all-round product portfolio which sells so that he can offer something to every walk-in customer.

Remember the days when Tata only offered Indica, Indigo & Safari ? But at least, the former two sold like hotcakes in the taxi segment & the latter was a darling of the power circles. Can Honda & their dealers confidently wade through these turbulent times only on the back of City & Amaze ?
Would be interesting to watch how it all pans out for them.

[bullock-Car]

Today read the article about Honda moving to all electric future.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Aut...lectric-future
This comes after Nissan stopping all ICE engine development programs. The japanese were skeptical about the electric future but the writing on wall seems loud and clear. They have decided to rejig but due to the delay they may lose the leadership in automobiles. The electric cars with newer drives and shift towards towards more software will bring the tech companies to the fore.i.e sony, amazon.
They tried and betted on hybrid technology but the shift to all electric seems faster without the intermediate hybrid step. Anyways it is going to be interesting future with seismic changes in the automotive world.

[Reinhard]

Originally Posted by vsrivatsa

By around 2-30 PM I also received this forward as a statement from HCIL
Hope they manage to refresh the portfolio soon.

The original post from @ram87pune definitely was outwardly speculative, and without a direct reference or citation. Most would have read it, skipped a beat & forgotten about it.

A mature response would have been no response / "we don't comment". The rather desperate response, to go as far as to contact a public forum for removal of a post - is amusing (for the lack of better words). In my purely personal opinion - that statement from Honda - is the real authentication of that scoop! I really wonder if the Honda power-brokers know how forums and social media works. By the time they released the statement and asked for a removal of the post - it had already gone viral. Pretty much everyone with interests in cars had read it via one way or the other. To then ask for it to be deleted...Well reminded me of those children in school that used to go to teachers all the time with "Teacher teacher, he hid my pencil eraser!".

Originally Posted by audioholic

To keep it in short, I would have expected a better response from Honda instead of what I would call a run of the mill threat.

+9999!

[vsrivatsa]

Originally Posted by Reinhard

A mature response would have been no response / "we don't comment". The rather desperate response, to go as far as to contact a public forum for removal of a post - is amusing (for the lack of better words).

Since the post went viral I am assuming there might have been a lot of people who might have asked questions around this post when they visited the dealerships either for Service or Sales.

Definitely a potential buyer would be very worried and want an official statement and these types of claims can have an impact on the sales given the recent history where people have seen Ford exit.

If one puts himself in the shoes of a salesman at a Honda Dealership - this would definitely put the sales folks at the ground level in difficulty in having to defend the situation. And moreover in our country, culturally, silence is deemed acceptance.

While Honda could have used a slightly different language, I think a response on similar lines was definitely needed to clear the air and to ensure the Sales folks can continue smoothly.

If Honda had said "we don't comment", then also I am sure there would have been 4-5 pages of debates and discussions here on Team-BHP with people giving their own flavors and interpretations to it.

Now coming back to whether this is a temporary denial or do they really mean it - that is something one has to wait and watch to see where it goes.

[sarathlal]

How I wished Honda India to have taken time to read this decade old thread, with at least fraction of enthusiasm shown over a rather speculative post!

[dragracer567]

Originally Posted by vsrivatsa

Interesting day today - by around 8-00 AM in the morning someone forwarded the note (which has now been removed) on the Honda City WA Group that I am part of. There were mixed opinions on it. Good that Honda has responded and kind of made a statement that they are not exiting.

By around 2-30 PM I also received this forward as a statement from HCIL:
Attachment 2272184

Hope they manage to refresh the portfolio soon.

Good that they responded but seems a bit extreme by saying it was posted with malicious intent (though I don't know what the post they are referring to). I mean, we have discussed the possible exit of the VW group, Toyota, Honda etc multiple times in this group, so it would have sufficed for Honda to confirm that they won't exit the market instead of name-calling.

And c'mon Honda, you've some very good products, I believe that the current gen-City is a gem for the price while your global lineup is amongst the best it's ever been. Unfortunately, Honda (like others) missed the Creta segment but they could try and catch up! Unlike Ford & Chevy, people actually trust Honda, so please don't mess up.

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by vsrivatsa

people who might have asked questions around this post when they visited the dealerships either for Service or Sales.

Definitely a potential buyer would be very worried and want an official statement and these types of claims can have an impact on the sales given the recent history where people have seen Ford exit.

If one puts himself in the shoes of a salesman at a Honda Dealership - this would definitely put the sales folks at the ground level in difficulty in having to defend the situation. And moreover in our country, culturally, silence is deemed acceptance.

And I am sure the sort of clarification they gave would hardly convince a customer that would have asked this question. Imagine someone spread a rumour about Maruti exiting India, the customer and salesguy would have had a laugh about it.
The SA in a Skoda showroom, with two new launches and one not even completely launched would have just shown around the customer what their latest product feels like. For Toyota, that would be a sort of a fire sale of whatever they have at the dealership as customers would want to get the last Toyotas they can no matter what it takes which will be followed by a price hike. Neither Hyundai nor Kia could also fall to this trap as they have a healthy portfolio and a good history of launches and with a huge waitlist right now for most models to justify that they have no plan to quit.
And the potential Honda customer is shown a notice from their own management to prove that they wont exit India. I will let the readers be the judge of which pitch would be a better counter to some random guy posting in an internet forum. I hope my light post was not boring, but thats the sad state Honda is in right now. Line up a few test mules in front of your factory and give a glimpse of what the potential buyer can expect in the coming months.
I was in the market for a sedan from the last few months and the Honda City was sounding like a very practical choice. The moment I saw the Slavia test mule, I knew what to expect from Skoda and have been waiting from since then to experience the Slavia. Can we expect something like this from Honda to prove their commitment towards the Indian market? I would love a City Hybrid personally.
Where is the Civic, Accord and CRV? Aren't VW and Skoda managing to sell similar products in this segment with low volumes?

[vsrivatsa]

Originally Posted by dragracer567

Good that they responded but seems a bit extreme by saying it was posted with malicious intent (though I don't know what the post they are referring to).

Yes the language used should have been more refined and they could have excluded the adjectives used and still confirmed the same in a formal, non-emotional way.

Originally Posted by audioholic

And the potential Honda customer is shown a notice from their own management to prove that they wont exit India. I will let the readers be the judge of which pitch would be a better counter to some random guy posting in an internet forum.

Agree - for a brand doing well - no one would give attention to a rumor like this in the first place. Given the recent history of actions taken by Honda of closing one plant and reducing their line-up makes people to give attention to such theories.

To take the comparison to a different domain, if a random guy on internet makes a comment also, there are instances of Actors and Politicians suing them and getting the post/comment or YouTube videos taken off to ensure there is no harm done to their "brand image" - so I don't find it surprising.

If a similar comment was made on another car brand also and If people started asking this question at the dealerships, I believe they would have also responded to ensure the right messaging about the brand.

In this case, the language used should have been more professional, non-emotional (no adjectives) and to the point.

[rjalihal]

I was just browsing the Honda India website as well as a few local dealer websites (Magnum and Dakshin). They only have City (4th and 5th Gen), Amaze, Jazz and WR-V. There is a new 2022 Civic launched, but Honda have not done so in India yet. CR-V made a comeback but was discontinued too. Too much dependency on the City. I feel they should bring back the bigger sedans/crossovers to widen their product portfolio. I feel, if they bring in their JDM 'Kei' cars, it may be a game changer as well. Just my thoughts.

Regards,
Rohan

[firstdrive]

Well hope they wake up after this and at least go the CBU route. Skoda/VW did a wonderful job by getting Karoq/Troc as stop gap before launching Kushaq/Taigun.

Test the waters before going big, if there is no launch in 2022 expecting them to wrap up then. Whatever claims being made now could be just to avoid loss till they announce exit!