[Saanil]

Few points from my side:

1. Alto leading the sales chart as always. But soon it is to face competition from Hyundai Eon.

2. It is sad but not surprising to see Linea figures. I do not think they will increase any further. All we can do is wait to see what FIAT does next. As far as rumours are concerned I dont think FIAT has any new model coming up. I do not think any amount of discounts will also make Linea sell.

3. City ruling the charts again. Verna and Vento following city. Sx4 being overshadowed by the top 3 and I do not see any reason why they should increase. Fiesta was set on the backfoot by its pricing. I think price revision will come in a few months.

4. Swift and Jazz figures from next month will provide clearer picures. i20 sales might decrease next month.

[Crazy4.Cars]

When a customer has swift on his mind, it is very difficult to convert these customers to buy a cheaper car, that is Ritz.

The Brand Name is india matters a Lot, Swift is a Swift. I Have a couple of close friends who are salespersons at MSIL dealership, they say when some one comes for swift, we have to give them a swift, we do our duty to explaining that the Ritz is more partical, end of day customer goes ahead and buy's the Figo or waits for the Swift.

The sales of the Ritz is purely based on the customers who really want a Ritz, they are aware of the facts and pratical features this hatch has on offer. The ritz is more value for money considering the amount of space it has on the inside and 60:40 rear seat spilt, large boot and to top it all it has a 60-70K price difference when compared to the Swift Diesel versions.

The Sales of the Ritz is not a shocker to me, it is not dependent of the Swift demand and supple in any way(Hardly 10% of the customers are impatient and have the urgency to jump from a proven brand name from a swift to a Ritz)

The Sales of the Ritz in the last 2 months are good and will continue to grow forward, the SA at MSIL have stopped giving discounts/Freebies on the car from the last 4 months, it is very difficult to imagen getting the same old discounts of 20k on the Ritz moving forward IMHO

[RavenAvi]

A peek at the busiest segments, sales-wise -

[Crazy4.Cars]

Originally Posted by anu21v

Looks some imagination at work there. Why would Fiat want to control the number of engines being manufactured by Maruti, afterall they get royalty on each engine fitted in Maruti's cars. I think it has to be the availability issue of some key parts to manufacture MJD engines. I beleive quite a few of these parts are import, for which increasing the capacity can be a big issue.

This is true, Suzuki has a Contract with FIAT for Manufacturing a certain amount of engines only. latest of what i have heard is that it was about 2.5lakhs in a year!

Why would FIAT want to have a control over it? its a simple question.

FIAT has developed the engine with GM they were running through crisis,they found a chance to earn some money they did this deal with suzuki, end of the day suzuki made a lot of money and the Swift became a huge hit because of the FIAT 1.3 MJD.

If you or me were at FIAT today by any chance we would be waiting for this contract to get over and stop suzuki from growing their portfolio using our engines. forget about the question of FIAT allowing to suzuki to manufacture more engines every year unless FIAT is still under financial crisis.

[Mik]

Terribly dissapointed with the Nano figures. I don't think anything can save it now. Not even power steering or removing engine noise. The lakhtakia car image has worked against it a lot. No one considers it a proper car. Giving it a V2 treatment will only push the cost upwards and put it into Alto territory. Alto vs Nano is a no-contest.
Hope Diesel Nano can do some magic.

[fiat_tarun]

Originally Posted by Mik

Terribly dissapointed with the Nano figures. I don't think anything can save it now. Not even power steering or removing engine noise. The lakhtakia car image has worked against it a lot. No one considers it a proper car. Giving it a V2 treatment will only push the cost upwards and put it into Alto territory. Alto vs Nano is a no-contest.
Hope Diesel Nano can do some magic.

Please don't read too much into the Nano sales numbers. The numbers here are dealer dispatches, and the Nano plant was closed for 2 weeks for aligning inventories and maintenance.

I agree the Nano is not flying off shelves, but this month's sales figures will not give you the right picture.

[srishiva]

Originally Posted by Crazy4.Cars

This is true, Suzuki has a Contract with FIAT for Manufacturing a certain amount of engines only. latest of what i have heard is that it was about 2.5lakhs in a year!

Why would FIAT want to have a control over it? its a simple question.

FIAT has developed the engine with GM they were running through crisis,they found a chance to earn some money they did this deal with suzuki, end of the day suzuki made a lot of money and the Swift became a huge hit because of the FIAT 1.3 MJD.

If you or me were at FIAT today by any chance we would be waiting for this contract to get over and stop suzuki from growing their portfolio using our engines. forget about the question of FIAT allowing to suzuki to manufacture more engines every year unless FIAT is still under financial crisis.

The diesel engines have been responsible for Swift's success. However, the customer would give a damn to whether its Fiat or something else. Fiat should be happy that Suzuki is using their engines and they get some royalty out of it.

Any manufacturer would agree to work to sell their engine to Suzuki to get the money.

[sa_kiran]

Originally Posted by anandjha

Imagine, what its facelifted model (perhaps with proper music system and ACC???)

I have been driving ANHC for over one and a half years now. I don't see any problems with the music system. I used to carry iPod earlier and iPhone now, I play my music, use Sygic on phone and the phone is charged. It also has a USB port and radio receiver. What else is required?

ACC will be a very good addition, particularly since the competition in the segment offers it.

I find height problems with the car; right thigh pains during long drives. I keep a folded napkin below my thigh to overcome the pain! May people would also have faced this problem. Cruise control will be a great addition for this car.

[kaks15]

Originally Posted by GTO

[b]Some observations..

A query - these are not retails, these are what dealers are billed to from the company ?
Just a thought, if they are not retails can these numbers be directly correlated to market inclination? (if more incentives are given to dealers to keep stock these numbers would show higher demand for that vehicle rather than what actually is)

[SDP]

Originally Posted by kaks15

A query - these are not retails, these are what dealers are billed to from the company ?
Just a thought, if they are not retails can these numbers be directly correlated to market inclination? (if more incentives are given to dealers to keep stock these numbers would show higher demand for that vehicle rather than what actually is)

Given the huge amount of money that would get blocked in inventory, I don't think dealers can sustain unrealistic projections for more than a couple of months.

[swiftnfurious]

Originally Posted by fiat_tarun

They supposedly have asked Fiat for license to increase production, to which Fiat said they'll supply engines from their Ranjangaon plant to MSIL.

What I read was, Maruti doesn't want to expand their facility to churn out more diesel engines since the market is not sure of the diesel pricing in the future. Hence they have asked Fiat to give them the extra number of engines they need.

Originally Posted by Crazy4.Cars

If you or me were at FIAT today by any chance we would be waiting for this contract to get over and stop suzuki from growing their portfolio using our engines.

Pretty much in line with what I think.

Originally Posted by srishiva

The diesel engines have been responsible for Swift's success. However, the customer would give a damn to whether its Fiat or something else. Fiat should be happy that Suzuki is using their engines and they get some royalty out of it.

Maruti should be making more profit out of it. If FIAT was "desperate" to provide engines to Maruti for some royalty, why didn't they sign off the 1.6 MJD for SX4? SX4 D was in the pipe line for 2 years or so and finally came out with a 1.3 engine right? The question is how much Swifts will sell if FIAT stops giving the MJD? I am sure some of those diesel sales will go the FIAT way !

[shankar.balan]

this is a good point if indeed these sales reports are primaries (b2b). what really counts here are secondaries - (b2c). not sure if these reports pertain to b2b or actual consumer off take. if they pertain to the former then definitely it only shows an inclination as to what products the dealers are betting on. but it is possible (in the absence of other data) to extrapolate that what the dealers are betting on is what the consumer market actually wants - with some amount of standard deviations here and there.

Originally Posted by kaks15

A query - these are not retails, these are what dealers are billed to from the company ?
Just a thought, if they are not retails can these numbers be directly correlated to market inclination? (if more incentives are given to dealers to keep stock these numbers would show higher demand for that vehicle rather than what actually is)

[SkyWalker]

Originally Posted by karanraheja

I think it is got more to do with people waiting for Etios D launch around the corner.

Originally Posted by anu21v

A drop in Etios volume from 5100 was expected. This again is Petrol only engine syndrome which is affecting right from i10, wagonR , Alto, Estilo upto the Spark and Santro, all of which are petrol only cars.

A new heart on 9th september should add zing both to Liva and Etios.

good point Karan & Anu21v - i forgot that the Etios diesel is just around the corner. Thanks!

[Gansan]

Originally Posted by fiat_tarun

I agree the Nano is not flying off shelves, but this month's sales figures will not give you the right picture.

I was at Concord Motors, Chennai last week to book an Indigo CS diesel for a colleague and checked out the Nano as well. The SE informed me they were delivering on an average 6 - 7 of them every day.

[srishiva]

Originally Posted by swiftnfurious

Maruti should be making more profit out of it. If FIAT was "desperate" to provide engines to Maruti for some royalty, why didn't they sign off the 1.6 MJD for SX4? SX4 D was in the pipe line for 2 years or so and finally came out with a 1.3 engine right? The question is how much Swifts will sell if FIAT stops giving the MJD? I am sure some of those diesel sales will go the FIAT way !

I think Fiat got stuck with 1.3 engine. They did not know what they were into when it happened. Now they dont want to help Maruti in another segment.

Fiat already has a 1.3 and is supposed to be a better car and is cheaper too. Why isn't it selling? People loved Swift in its petrol avatar and it got carried into the diesel one. Look at ANHC, diesel be damned. Its going to maintain the no.1 position in its segment.

Looking at the response to Fiats, one can assume that Fiat can't do anything right and Maruti any wrong. Fiat has nothing to do with Swift's success. It was not like everyone knew that something like Swift diesel was expected to be success before it started.