[GTO]

Team,

Firstly, I'd like to thank Moderators Technocrat & Zappo for their help in preparing a sales database sheet for Team-BHP! Going forward, you will be seeing a lot of changes in the way that sales figures are reported. We will be continually improving on this system in the months to come.

Data received thus far; the rest of the manufacturers will be added as they come in:

TOP 20

[GTO]

Quick points from my side:

- Clearly a month where petrol cars have taken a royal beating. Market is also suffering from the recent RBI interest rates hikes. The growth rates we witnessed in 2010 are unsustainable. Period.

- The Fluidic Verna sure seems to have struck a chord with the market, especially on the styling front. Nearly 5,000 cars shipped, that's nearly three times what the previous gen used to manage. A super-hit without doubt and the No.1 selling sedan in India (Indigo numbers include CS & Manza both).

- Beat diesel flying from the factory to the dealer. While it's early days yet, I feel that the Beat's combination of low entry price + build + fuel efficient engine will see it many good days. Looks like a part of the Spark's production was diverted to the Beat...there's no other explanation for the Spark's meagre 1,500 tally.

- WagonR sales (down 30% from the 2011 average) show the weakness of a petrol-only offering. On the other hand, the Ritz has an especially strong showing (some customers would have deferred from the long waiting period of the new Swift??). Swift will be back with a bang in the coming month. Dzire production low due to the production shift out from the Manesar plant.

- No war between the Cruze & Altis this month; the Toyota is king of the C+ segment by a mile. Average performance by Renault Fluence as expected.

- The Honda City is back in the game; amazing what a price correction can do. Sitting now at a very strong 4,000 units, albeit having forfeited No.1 place to the Fluidic Verna. Still, the City is easily the best selling petrol in the segment.

- If you want to know why every manufacturer needs a diesel, look at Hyundai's hatchbacks. Each one of them - from the Santro to the i20 - has recorded their lowest figures thus far in 2011. Sure, the i20 has a diesel, but we all know it's the 1.2 petrol that's the best selling. Nevertheless, the Hyundai hatchbacks have put in a good show, but lost out in the previous year / month comparisons.

- Not a bright month for Tata. The Nano continues it's yo-yo performance, sometimes good & other times terrible. Very inconsistent for a car in the mass market segment. A mere 3,200 units is nothing for this wonderful car (Tata marketing failure, no doubt). Indica + Vista also perform at 50% of their previous levels, obviously feeling the heat from younger competitors + Tata's poor marketing. Even the Manza deserves to do better, if we go by product strengths alone.

- Things continue to look good for the Etios, though the Liva is off to a slow start. We'll have to wait & watch how the market accepts a built-to-a-cost Toyota. Innova & Fortuner have very strong months....and deservedly so!

- It's the 3rd month now that the Figo is reporting numbers in the mid 5,000. Still very respectable. There's a new VFM diesel hatch on the block (i.e. Beat) and Ford is going to have to raise it's marketing game. The Fiesta's launch must have also kept Ford's attention away from the Figo.

- Strangely enough, the Fiesta Classic is completely unaffected by the new Fiesta. It's sales tally is about as much as in previous months. We'll have to watch over the coming months how the market responds to the new Fiesta's premium pricing. I personally feel it's over-priced by nearly 75K.

- Tough days at Fiat, very tough. They have just about managed to cross a thousand units, despite having decent cars & Tata's wide network. Lets see what their new head of Marketing can do to turn this situation around.

- Status quo for the Polo with a 3.5K average. Vento is clearly feeling the heat from the Verna and the price corrected Honda City. The VW Passat is unable to create an impression on the D segment, and is certainly over-shadowed by it's more flamboyant sibling (The Superb).

- Skoda has had a reasonable month, with the Fabia (once a dud, now a consistent 1.4 - 1.5K car), Laura & Superb (lowest month of the year, yet the No.1 D segmenter). On the other hand, the Yeti continues it's poor sub-200 unit run. Size & presence, I guess, are a priority with SUV customers.

- No increase in the number of Jazz shipments. A clear indicator that Honda & the dealers were offering whopping 1.5 lakh rupee discounts on older stock. No bright fortunes for the Accord either, with a very poor month recorded. 20 lakh rupee customers prefer diesel & features, neither of which the Honda offers.

- HM should have realised that babus will only buy the Ambassador for so long. Available in showrooms way beyond it's sell-by date, the Ambassador (a best-selling HM Mitsubishi product) is tumbling down the rankings in the most recent quarter. Heck, the 4 times more expensive Pajero is giving it in-house competition! Speaking of which, the Pajero has had its best performance yet, in 2011.

- Mahindra's Verito (aka Logan) continues its slow & steady crawl up the charts. 1,630 is an excellent score for a sedan once written off. When the sub-4 meter version arrives, things are only going to get better.

[headbanger]

Logged in umpteen times to see if the score card is out yet!!!
Petrol cars have indeed taken a royal beating. TOI mentioned a report wherein Maruti has suffered a decline of 25% vis a vis sales in July 2010

[ravradha]

1. Astar: Consecutive months less than 1000. Does this mean Astar will be discontinued? Wonder how much is the export figure?
2. MUV: This segment has held its ground, inspite of the lacklustre month. Xylo, Scorpio, Innova have bettered their figures over the previous month. Is this the diesel effect GTO is talking about?

[Mark 5]

Good job GTO! Was eagerly waiting for the results to arrive and as expected the petrol cars did take a heavy beating which will be more worse as the time will pass on.

MSIL Swift's and Dzire's numbers are really at an all time low I guess (SWIFT: due to its new avatar coming soon plus the strike effect and DZIRE: again due to the strike) and by seeing these numbers, competitors will hope that they stay this way (but again not possible once the new Swift comes which has garnered 30k+ bookings already!).

[designersf]

Originally Posted by headbanger

Logged in umpteen times to see if the score card is out yet!!!
Petrol cars have indeed taken a royal beating. TOI mentioned a report wherein Maruti has suffered a decline of 25% vis a vis sales in July 2010

Thanks to Swift and Dzire which have sold very less. New models around the corner!

[heman_369]

Good to see Etios doin consistent numbers even without diesel. With the diesel rumoured to be around the corner in september, its numbers are definetly going to shoot up. Manza definetly deserves better numbers.

[windsurfer]

Thanks a lot GTO, Technocrat and Zappo. Indeed, a very nice compilation.

Guys, can you share the excel sheet as well? It would be easier to compare the performance across segments.

[ritzy]

Thanks for the figures.

In the top 25 table, Make and Model headings are interchanged. Nitpicking! .

[windsurfer]

Originally Posted by ritzy

Thanks for the figures.

In the top 25 table, Make and Model headings are interchanged. Nitpicking! .

And top 25 table lists only 19 items. More nitpicking!!!

[xingamazon]

Few observations from my side:
1. I am expecting Linea and Fiesta to compete with each other, not in terms of performance but in terms of lower sales. Ford should realise thier mistake now before its too late. Sale of 781 was expected. But shocking fact is there is no ad on TV yet, I am shocked.
Fiesta reporting Linea like figures right on its first month of sale. Hats off to Ford.
2. Etios Liva 2551. I expected it would churn out less number but this was lesser than my lowest estimates. Looks like people lap up Toyota only in the segment above.
3. BEAT: I am shocked to see this car reporting lesser than Figo. Despite the fact that the last marketing campaign I saw for Figo was six months before. Zero Marketing from Ford will surely kill its products.
4. Indica+VISTA doing around 6k is just great. looks like the new VISTA is helping its figures.
5. Finally, can someone tell me who is buying those Omnis.

[avisidhu]

Same here, I checked so many times since morning, knew that this month would be 'different'

The overall decline in numbers aside, but doesn't it seem that the overall pie has increased considerably for sub 10L Sedans? I mean, look at the sheer number of vehicles that are selling close to 5K a month (Verna, Etios, City etc).

Hoping some miracle happens for Linea(and by extension, Fiat too). Its such a good product, would be a shame if it gets taken off.

[funkyp]

Thanks for the numbers GTO. The new format makes for easy comparision by segment and company MoM.

I see the Jazz figure at 275. This is the number which was shipped by honda to the dealers right? I remember reading that honda has stopped production of the Jazz for July.

If it was in stock cars, then some of the guys must have got hands on a may/june model of the jazz during the discounted price. All that i could find was Feb made models.

[CARDEEP]

Originally Posted by GTO

The Honda City is back in the game; amazing what a price correction can do. Sitting now at a very strong 4,000 units, though still having forfeited No.1 place to the Fluidic Verna. Still, the City is easily the best selling petrol in the segment.

- Not a bright month for Tata. The Nano continues it's yo-yo performance, sometimes good & sometimes terrible. Very inconsistent for a car in the mass market segment. A mere 3,200 units is nothing for this wonderful car (Tata marketing failure, no doubt). Indica + Vista also perform at 50% of their previous levels, no doubt feeling the heat from younger competitors + Tata's poor marketing. Even the Manza deserves to do better, if we go by product strengths alone.

- Mahindra's Verito (aka Logan) continues its slow & steady crawl up the charts. 1,630 is an excellent score for a sedan once written off. When the sub-4 meter version arrives, things are only going to get better.

GTO, have been looking for the thread & must comment that the new number compilation is both good & bad. This is because of the following reasons:
1. Bad - We have tendency to resist the change, however, good it may be.
2. Good - The new one is much better than the earlier system of reporting monthly sales as one can instantly make comparative analysis with previous months.

Regarding your comments on 3 cars that I have extracted from your posts, here are my comments (if al they matter ):
1. Honda City - This is car is good as 90% of the C+ at 75% of price, but definitely suffers from a version with alternative fuel option, even after the price correction. IMO this can definitely help increasing the sales of the car till the time a diesel version is launched.

2. Tata Nano (particularly) - The Nano has not caught the imagination of the middle class courtesy parking problems & niggles + fire reports that fail to be doused off completely.
Tata cars generally suffer from the perception of not being niggle free, due to which sales have suffered more than any other auto company's.

3. Mahindra Verito - I wish the French (Renault) weren't as ambitious as they are & they could have got a good platform for their new & future launches. Further, hope that Mahindra bumps up the BHP number of the car (both mills).

Thanks & Regards.

[romeomidhun]

GTO, thanks for the data.

There are only 2 days in a month that I am very eagerly waiting for:

1. The last working day of the month for salary
2. The first day of the month for your monthly car sales report!


Even after the fuel price hike, the petrol-only City sells 4K! That shows City's brand value.

I'm still unable to convince myself why Maruti stopped production of old Swift around 2 months prior to the launch of the new Swift.