[rajamuneeb]

IMO Maruti's discount offer before the year end also contributed to its high sales. All models including their celebrity Swift had good discounts to offer. This may be another reason for Wagon R sales to jump so high. Also i am surprised that this page hasn't made it to our home page yet. Is there any specific reason?

[Unbranded]

Originally Posted by GTO

Exports, most definitely. There is no reason for EcoSport numbers to go down when it has a waiting period of 9 - 12 months!

IIRC, Ford's production capacity is 1.5 lakh cars (2 shifts) to 2 lakh cars (3 shifts). That's between 12500 - 16667 cars each month.

On the other hand, Ford India has been selling between 6000 - 10000 cars / month in recent times.

The difference is definitely moved out via exports. I wish they'd first clear the India backlog before shipping EcoSports internationally. The Indian management probably wants to do just that, but these might be orders from international bosses.

Yes. That is the case as per the local dealer.
As per them , Ford India is making around 9k ecosports with about 4k petrol cars focused on the exports. The remaining capacity would probably be shared between Petrol/Diesel for India.

Cheers.

[i74js]

Originally Posted by wilful

Thanks for the figures.
Just saw that the Amaze numbers have dipped substantially in Dec from the 7000 range to below 4500. Wonder why?
Tata Aria sees a spike in sales. The highest it has sold for a while.

Honda went for a plant shutdown, the numbers shared here are not the sales figure instead the numbers sent by manufacturer to the dealer. Thus the 2013 models have been cleared from the stocks. You will see an impressive / bounced back number in jan 2014 figures.

Cheers

[avdhesh15]

Originally Posted by akhilesh51

At Honda, they seem to have something up their sleeve.

No billing of New City in Dec ? I am confident I saw some vehicles at dealer yard on 31 Dec - 1st Jan.

Even if no City was billed, definitely Honda must have had full steam production of this car in the month. Add to it, recent interview where top officials at Honda have confirmed that they are starting 3rd shift at plant, i.e. 30% additional production.

Now even considering that Amaze numbers are due to low demand (which I believe is not true), we have Amaze @ 4500-5000 vehicles & Brio @ 1500-2000 vehicles from a revised production capacity of 13000 odd vehicle (30% up from current 10000 vehicles).

It is then safe to say that Honda will manufacture approx. 6,000 New City in Jan and a carry forward of some 5,000 vehicles from December production i.e Honda now has in excess of 10,000 New Honda City to be on safe side to sell this month. Unless of course, Honda plans to export New Honda City which will change entire equation.

I am sure if they do manage such a feat, this will be a massive boost for Honda and will scare their competitors (Verna, Vento & Rapid), who are doing 1500-2500 units.

Question is, Can they do it???

Exactly the thought which I had when I first saw these numbers. Yes there must have been a plant shutdown but I feel that Honda is adapting a different strategy... UNDER promise and OVER deliver.

When I was in the showroom in Mumbai a couple of days back to finalize my petrol V-MT, my friend was also there to look at the diesel option. He was promised delivery within 10 days despite no pre-booking!

Wishful thinking but it gives me confidence that the above numbers reflect that the 4th gen City has been manufactured in decent numbers, the waiting should clear within March, and then they can prepare for the Mobilio and subsequently the Jazz using similar strategies.

[guunbuu]

Based on reports last year, wasn't Skoda planning to cease the production of Fabia? Its interesting to see an "average" uptrend in the Fabia numbers, YoY is 80+%.

[centaur]

The new fiesta sold just 1 unit?? The classic sells much more. The captiva also seems to be in a similar puddle. i10 Grand seems to have cannibalized the i10 and i20 sales as well. The GT also doesnt seems to be working much for the Polo
Guunbu - I too had a similar question. I have seen Fabias being displayed in Skoda dealerships and even new ones on the road. Either they are just selling till the stocks last or maybe they didnt really pull the plug till they get a replacement.

[JishD]

Originally Posted by centaur

The new fiesta sold just 1 unit?? The classic sells much more. The captiva also seems to be in a similar puddle. i10 Grand seems to have cannibalized the i10 and i20 sales as well. The GT also doesnt seems to be working much for the Polo Guunbu - I too had a similar question. I have seen Fabias being displayed in Skoda dealerships and even new ones on the road. Either they are just selling till the stocks last or maybe they didnt really pull the plug till they get a replacement.

The GT cannot work for VW if they have no plans to sell much ! People are waiting for months for delivery, and there were very few dispatched to dealers in Dec.

[tejas08]

Originally Posted by akhilesh51

At Honda, they seem to have something up their sleeve.

No billing of New City in Dec ? I am confident I saw some vehicles at dealer yard on 31 Dec - 1st Jan.

Even if no City was billed, definitely Honda must have had full steam production of this car in the month. Add to it, recent interview where top officials at Honda have confirmed that they are starting 3rd shift at plant, i.e. 30% additional production.

Now even considering that Amaze numbers are due to low demand (which I believe is not true), we have Amaze @ 4500-5000 vehicles & Brio @ 1500-2000 vehicles from a revised production capacity of 13000 odd vehicle (30% up from current 10000 vehicles).

It is then safe to say that Honda will manufacture approx. 6,000 New City in Jan and a carry forward of some 5,000 vehicles from December production i.e Honda now has in excess of 10,000 New Honda City to be on safe side to sell this month. Unless of course, Honda plans to export New Honda City which will change entire equation.

I am sure if they do manage such a feat, this will be a massive boost for Honda and will scare their competitors (Verna, Vento & Rapid), who are doing 1500-2500 units.

Question is, Can they do it???

Good Question!

With the December figures, I am a bit puzzled too. The Amaze isn't selling much neither is the Brio. Their production was 9K+ was almost all of the last 7 months with a sudden drop to less than 6K. Almost everybody knows that the numbers drop in December, but with the recent news of Honda possibly starting the third shift (I am not sure if they have started or will be starting from January-2014) considering that all of the balance production is that of the new city, we are looking at almost 12K to 14K of ready delivery stock from the factory by the end of Jan-2014.

Are they expecting that many bookings till January-2014?

I remember reading somewhere that Honda has already received booking of close too 10K cars. Is this an official statement from Honda or just some inside news?

P.S. - I went to Hallmark Honda Thane (Near Mumbai) to check out the car, and the number given to me is that a total of 70 bookings had till yesterday with close to 70% diesel bookings.

[tejas08]

Originally Posted by Shortsell

Having interacted with ford india extensively I can tell you that it is a conscious effort on the local management as well to increase their share of export earnings. A roughy number is a focus to up it from 20% of turnover to say 40-45%. There are a few reasons for this

1-- better realisations at current exchange rates
2-- USD earnings provide the company with a natural hedge against their USD loans.
3-- Being a star exporter comes with multiple benefits from the government which includes the ability to access cheaper funding in foreign currency.

Not getting into details here

Exporting is a no brainier actually from a purely business perspective. How ford would be wishing that their plant in Sanand would be up and running

To add to the above list, the benefit of bringing in foreign currency helping in Tax benefits to the Indian Management too.

[rajamuneeb]

Why is it that come every January and car manufacturers hike prices. What drives them to do this or is it mandatory to raise prices in january and then do another hike in the same year after March or on pretext of weaker rupee?

[zenren]

Originally Posted by rajamuneeb

Why is it that come every January and car manufacturers hike prices. What drives them to do this or is it mandatory to raise prices in january and then do another hike in the same year after March or on pretext of weaker rupee?

Any price correction that is needed from Sept-Oct onwards would be delayed till Jan since the inevitable year end discounts would make the hike meaningless till January.

Price hike in January is one of the reasons why they are able to sell cars in December quoting it as an advantage to buy the car in December before the price goes up in January.

Price rise from April 1 is a different logic. All the changes to taxes that are proposed in the annual budget are effective from April 1 and hence would affect the price of cars too. Its very likely that there will be some changes to taxes in a new budget - either at the raw materials level or as duties for the finished product.

[rajamuneeb]

Originally Posted by zenren

Any price correction that is needed from Sept-Oct onwards would be delayed till Jan since the inevitable year end discounts would make the hike meaningless till January.

Price hike in January is one of the reasons why they are able to sell cars in December quoting it as an advantage to buy the car in December before the price goes up in January.

Price rise from April 1 is a different logic. All the changes to taxes that are proposed in the annual budget are effective from April 1 and hence would affect the price of cars too. Its very likely that there will be some changes to taxes in a new budget - either at the raw materials level or as duties for the finished product.

What made me think about the price hike process is the curious case of Ford ES. Since its launch which has been less than a year we have already seen two price hikes for this particular model and inevitebly another one after March will be expected as well. What made Ford raise the prices of ES so considerably on one end and on the other there was no price rise for any other Ford product despite the fact that they are making huge profits on weaker rupee by exporting major chunk of ES. Even they gave a whopping 1.5L discount on their new feista. What am I missing here?

[anand_hc]

Tata Nano - Isn't is a classical case study of how not to make & market a car.

Instead of selling 50000 they are selling 500. I am as confused as hell what they would do and am sure Tatas too are, about it's future and what they want to do

[rajamuneeb]

Originally Posted by anand_hc

Tata Nano - Isn't is a classical case study of how not to make & market a car.

Instead of selling 50000 they are selling 500. I am as confused as hell what they would do and am sure Tatas too are, about it's future and what they want to do

I know what its future is going to be. The way TATA is going in India soon you with every Aria purchase there will be a free Nano towed along. *Sattire*

[zenren]

Originally Posted by rajamuneeb

What made me think about the price hike process is the curious case of Ford ES. Since its launch which has been less than a year we have already seen two price hikes for this particular model and inevitebly another one after March will be expected as well.
...
What am I missing here?

Low introductory price is part of marketing for any new product - be it in any segment. The introductory prices for a model are the prices that people associate with that product to assess the segment it belongs to, its VFM proposition etc. So any manufacturer would want to put a low sticker tag (it might even be a minimal profit price) for a new variant to catch the attention of the general public.

Once this price gets across everyone, they'll slowly increase the price to the levels where they have the desired profits. It is usually done in stages so that the hike doesn't appear too steep. Consider this move to be similar to the 50p increase in diesel prices per month that is being implemented with a target increase of Rs.5 over a year. Its not that the government doesn't know it needs to hike the price of diesel again next month when they do it now. However, a single shot hike of Rs.5 would lead to huge outcry and they'll have to rollback it at least partially which defeats the purpose. Similarly, a steep hike in price of a model would lead to customers rejecting it forcing them to offer discounts which is as good as rolling back the hike. So they are careful by hiking the price in a phased manner.

Everyone plans to do this but if they end up making a market dud, they'll hold their plans of hiking the price till the market accepts the product. IIRC, Swift LXi when introduced in May 2005 was priced at 3.83L but it stayed under 4L for only a short while. That was the last successful 'new' segment offering from Maruti.