[tejas08]

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

Disagree. If brand value was so important, Brio and Amaze would not have performed so poor compared to the competition.

IMO - success of the new generation City shows clearly how Honda has studied in the Indian mentality and wrapped the product perfectly to this requirement. Competing with Sunny/ Scala in space, Verna in features, Rapid in terms of VFM and packing diesel punch - its a good allrounder and it shows!

The reason I said Brand image has some importance over here is that the iDTEC is the first Honda Diesel Engine. Without even having a proven record of the iDTEC being a good Diesel engine, people have gone for Amaze & Honda Diesels.

Wouldn't that be called as selling because of the brand name?

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Originally Posted by tejas08

The reason I said Brand image has some importance over here is that the iDTEC is the first Honda Diesel Engine. Without even having a proven record of the iDTEC being a good Diesel engine, people have gone for Amaze & Honda Diesels.

Wouldn't that be called as selling because of the brand name?

Agree to that logic. This can only give an initial surge in sales, however, to have such an exceptional increase in sales - has to be the result of a good product.

[Sanjubose]

Skoda and VW are typical examples of loosing battle with right cars. They have got their cars right and to an extent the leaders in each of its segment, but have messed up in everything else they could.
The octavia slump disheartens me. A beautiful new launch and a competent car, but the numbers are now worser than Laura's last few months.

[vsrivatsa]

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

Disagree. If brand value was so important, Brio and Amaze would not have performed so poor compared to the competition.

Amaze may not be the segment leader, but I would not call its sales as "poor". It has sold very well in terms of numbers...Its in the Top 20 as per the stats. (#11 to be precise across all segments.)

[Mahesh Prasad]

Thanks GTO and Parrys for the brilliant, informative, in-depth analysis and report on the recent Indian Car Scene . Seems like Honda just hit the sweet spot for the Indian Car buyer through its latest offering, the City and it shows in the analysis. No doubt it's a blockbuster. Add to it the upcoming lineup of cars like the Mobilio and the Jazz to the portfolio, Honda looks like it's aiming for the stars!
A bit disappointed with the sales figures for Fiat. Both their offerings are good products but the dodgy ASS is a main deterrent IMO.
Well there is no questions regarding the Market Share, and Maruti keeps on leading the pack. Celerio looks like it has raked up good numbers since its initial launch. But the Grand i10 looks like it is climbing up the ladder and I guess it is eating into the shares of Wagon R.
Ford is a major disappointment with their attitude towards the Ecosport. The numbers seem to be dwindling even though there is a massive waiting period and they do not look capable of handling the demand .
Hope there are better times ahead for the Indian Car buyer.

[karanraheja]

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

Disagree. If brand value was so important, Brio and Amaze would not have performed so poor compared to the competition.

Please get your facts right sir ! Amaze is not performing poorly , its 11th best selling car. Yes it sells 3 times less compared to Dzire . But its selling better than the rest of the competition. 6000-7000 units is decent IMO.

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Originally Posted by vsrivatsa

Amaze may not be the segment leader, but I would not call its sales as "poor". It has sold very well in terms of numbers...Its in the Top 20 as per the stats. (#11 to be precise across all segments.)

Originally Posted by karanraheja

Please get your facts right sir ! Amaze is not performing poorly , its 11th best selling car. Yes it sells 3 times less compared to Dzire . But its selling better than the rest of the competition. 6000-7000 units is decent IMO.

Analysis is always relative to the segment potential and competition.

Amaze was launched strictly against one prime competition- Maruti Suzuki DZire. Everything from packaging to pricing was benchmarked to this effect.

I agree 6000 units sounds decent when viewed as a standalone product. However, bring 18,000 DZires into this equation- the whole scenario changes completely, and it's quite evident it's an under- achiever.

Another point to note- Even the more expensive City has climbed the charts higher than Amaze. The way I see these figures- I predict Amaze to take a huge beating in the coming months once Hyundai Xcent and fresher models hit the market.

[appu.bhandari]

Pleasantly surprised to see the aging Santro growing MoM and YoY whereas both the i10 and i20 losing their sales.

[skyfire2892]

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

Analysis is always relative to the segment potential and competition.

Amaze was launched strictly against one prime competition- Maruti Suzuki DZire. Everything from packaging to pricing was benchmarked to this effect.

I agree 6000 units sounds decent when viewed as a standalone product. However, bring 18,000 DZires into this equation- the whole scenario changes completely, and it's quite evident it's an under- achiever.

Another point to note- Even the more expensive City has climbed the charts higher than Amaze. The way I see these figures- I predict Amaze to take a huge beating in the coming months once Hyundai Xcent and fresher models hit the market.

Dzire is from Maruti's stable. It's sales always has been staggering and unexplained. Even with more CS cars around the number of Dzires will not change by much.
Amaze will be majorly challenged by Xcent, Zest, Figo CS etc. My assumption is major beating will be taken by hatches. The current chart shows difference b/w Dzire and Swift sales is just 746 cars. In a few months Dzire may overtake Swift.
The competition in this segment is increasing but at the same time size of segment is also increasing because everyone fancies a sedan!
It's just my speculation though!

[vsrivatsa]

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

Analysis is always relative to the segment potential and competition.

Amaze was launched strictly against one prime competition- Maruti Suzuki DZire. Everything from packaging to pricing was benchmarked to this effect.

I agree 6000 units sounds decent when viewed as a standalone product. However, bring 18,000 DZires into this equation- the whole scenario changes completely, and it's quite evident it's an under- achiever.

Another point to note- Even the more expensive City has climbed the charts higher than Amaze. The way I see these figures- I predict Amaze to take a huge beating in the coming months once Hyundai Xcent and fresher models hit the market.

There are multiple perspectives to go by...but going by what the Honda Cars India CEO stated, he expected all cars to be segment leaders and from that perspective what you say is correct...otherwise the volumes achieved by Amaze is definitely "Amazing"...Now the Brio is what we can clearly call a flop without any arguments...

City is in the initial demand cycle due to pre-bookings - it will not sustain at 7000+ levels for too long, it should possibly drop to 4500 range (my guess) once the pre-bookings are cleared. And yes I am sure many Amaze buyers have dropped Amaze and jumped to City as well due to which there is some cannibalization and balancing happening there.

The Xcent is just round the corner and I am sure it will eat some numbers from both the Swift and the Amaze. We need to see how much Swift it eats and how much Amaze it eats

[karanraheja]

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

Amaze was launched strictly against one prime competition- Maruti Suzuki DZire. Everything from packaging to pricing was benchmarked to this effect.

I agree 6000 units sounds decent when viewed as a standalone product. However, bring 18,000 DZires into this equation- the whole scenario changes completely, and it's quite evident it's an under- achiever.

Another point to note- Even the more expensive City has climbed the charts higher than Amaze. The way I see these figures- I predict Amaze to take a huge beating in the coming months once Hyundai Xcent and fresher models hit the market.

I dont think Honda ever dreamed Amaze could overtake Dzire sales , eating a pie of Dzire sales is what it had planned and its worked . Both Swift and Dzire outsell the competition by a huge margin. I think Honda is concentrating more on the City for now .

I totally agree with you that Amaze sales will come down gradually once the Tata Zest , Next Gen Figo Sedan , Xcent etc. hit the market. In fact the New Jazz itself might dent the sales of Amaze ( if priced well). Honda seriously needs to upgrade the interiors of Amaze .

[crazyro]

Originally Posted by karanraheja

I dont think Honda ever dreamed Amaze could overtake Dzire sales , eating a pie of Dzire sales is what it had planned and its worked . Both Swift and Dzire outsell the competition by a huge margin. I think Honda is concentrating more on the City for now .

I totally agree with you that Amaze sales will come down gradually once the Tata Zest , Next Gen Figo Sedan , Xcent etc. hit the market. In fact the New Jazz itself might dent the sales of Amaze ( if priced well). Honda seriously needs to upgrade the interiors of Amaze .

+1 to that.
People normally forget a very important thing while comparing cars of different manufacturers. Their dealer network.
Even if Amaze was 100 times better than DZire it would never be able to sell 18000 in a month. Honda just dosent have that dealer network or capacity to compete with Maruti or Hyundai.
Just a month back they could only produce 10000 cars a month!!

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Originally Posted by karanraheja

I dont think Honda ever dreamed Amaze could overtake Dzire sales , eating a pie of Dzire sales is what it had planned and its worked.

Now it's my turn to say- 'please get your facts right sir!'. Lol. Just kidding.

A month before Amaze hit the market DZire managed 18,316 cars - exactly one year back in Feb '13. Now, even with a general slowdown in the sector, Maruti has managed to sell more than 18.5k DZires.

I don't see how the 'plan of eating a pie of DZire sales worked' here.

[vinya_jag]

Originally Posted by GTO

It's difficult to understand Ford's strategy for India. On the one hand, it launches a fantastic product at a great price (i.e. EcoSport). Then, despite the year long waiting period & pent up demand, it doesn't deliver too many locally, instead routing a chunk of EcoSport production toward exports!! Feb '14 saw a measly 3,490 EcoSports being delivered to Indian dealers. Shocking, Ford should take a leaf out of Hyundai & Honda books. Observe how the Koreans & Japanese ramped up production to clear the Grand i10 & Amaze order books. The Figo has its best month in 5 at 3,100 cars, yet the ol' hatchback isn't up to a fight with newer competition. The next-gen Figo couldn't be coming anytime sooner. All those specials & deals are doing nothing to the Fiesta Classic's sales, not even a 1.6L 100 BHP engine for Rs. 4.99 lakhs. The new Fiesta's production has stopped to make way for the facelift that's due anytime now. This appears to be the case with the Endeavour as well. The grapevine has it that Ford will be launching the Fiesta facelift at a totally VFM price.

Ford has their placing all wrong in the Indian market.
They under priced the Figo and the Ecosport way too far. They wanted to win the market with their pricing.

Consider this:
Figo Kerb weight: 1240Kg
Liva: < 900
A clean 40% more metal

And yet, the Liva is priced higher.
Same is the case with Maruti, who give a clean 35% less metal, yet price their cars atleast 10% more than the Fords.

The above was just a crude example, but considering the products Ford offers, I guess their pricing is all too low.
Yes, the wanted to correct that with the Fiesta, but they mucked it up with the interiors. But, don't take away anything from the Genius of a car it was.

Last week, I was driving the ecosport, and was amazed by the sheer weight of the doors. I don't see a reason why the car should be priced so low. Are they afraid of a non existing competition?
Or, have they got their image all wrong?

So, are they making enough profits in the Indian market?
If not, why not export more?
They have a cheap plant setup, and they are availing cheap labour, tax benefits etc. So, why not milk foreign markets?

[FourWheelDrift]

Hello all,

Could someone please throw some light on why there are no numbers appearing for Thar in Feb '14 ?

It seems to have a steady niche for itself.

Not able to understand why no numbers are reported.

Cheers,

FourWheelDrift