[sadsack]

The most interesting aspect of this thread (Feb Sales) is that the Nano's sales have gone unnoticed or have not been commented upon by anyone despite the discussions having reached page 6. I think there is a story worth discussing there, since after the dismal sales of 500+ vehicles in December, 2013, both January and February have seen the sales rising over the 2000 mark. Not much or nothing needs to be made of this because the sales of the Nano simply defy logic and just when you think that it is catching on, suddenly there is a slump. Then when you think that the collapse of the car is imminent, sales pick up to half decent numbers. What I feel is that every time a few new features are added there is mild surge in sales and then they begin to taper off again after a couple of months.

I wonder why Tata is not able to read this properly. As a Nano owner (I bought the car when everyone said it was the most foolish thing to do) who has hid for a little over 3 years and having experienced nothing but satisfaction with the car, I feel that what makes the sales drop is the lackadaisical attitude of the company and dealers. On this point alone I have had many conversations with people on this forum in other threads, and I am convinced that the dealer network that Tata has is uninterested in pushing products. When a product shows signs of gaining traction the dealers should get aggressive and push the product. I still remain how the Wagon R and the Alto (the K10) just could not pull enough customers when they were launched at the turn of the century. Maruti's dealers pushed the cars so hard and so efficiently that both have gone on to become best sellers. You don't find this with Tata dealers.

I believe that the Zest and the Bolt which are due for launch in the near future will bomb in the market place if the dealerships are not rectified by Tata. In Hyderabad, most of the dealers do not even display cars leave alone have them ready for a test drive. The Aria is never seen in any dealership as is the case with the Safari Storme. There are sundry Nanos which go unnoticed by the salesman even when a customer is loitering around and seeing what the car is. I have noticed that many of Tata dealers in Hyderabad are those were sellers of Bajaj scooters in the days of the control Raj and they sold these scooters in the black market when the seller was the king. They were called auto consultants and managed to lay their hands on people who wanted to sell their Bajaj scooters and since the demand was so high, all they would do was tell the customer "take it or leave it". The same attitude continues with the Tata Cars as well. In fact, one dealership that was genuine in pushing cars was so tired of selling Tata cars (their words) that they shifted to becoming Maruti Suzuki dealers.

I therefore insist that Tata's problems are more dealer centric than product centric. Tata needs to revamp its dealerships and get them to get their act together before they launch any new products. Nobody likes to buy cars from dealers who treat their customers with indifference and do not have vehicles on display or have them available for test drives.

[doble u]

Here's my 2 cents

1. Hyundai (very smartly) tried to create a new segment by introducing i10 grand. Much to their dismay this new offering suddenly relegated the ol' warhorse(i10) to the not so valuable category and i20 to the expensive side. The net result was that while the i10 grand sales are flattering, overall it has cannibalized the Hyundai's already successful models.

2. Ford - well, well, well....Ford longed rather pined for a successful model in Indian market. They launched new Fiesta which was good but the pricing killed it, not to be disappointed they finally launched a car which had takers but then old habits die hard. It was said a while back that Ford's Chennai plant has a capacity to manufacture 200,000 cars a year and looking at the demand the would crank up the shifts. I am sure they would have done that and more cars would have been produced but for export markets. A quick look at the prices that Eco Sport is selling in South Africa and other countries shows that it retails there at roughly 14- 16 L. I am sure it would be much more profitable for Ford to export the cars there rather than fulfill demand here.
Now, comes the bad part (if it already wasn't). For should understand that to create this artificial scarcity it must have market goodwill. Gone are the days when people used to wait for years to get Bajaj or Priya or rather recently Swift Diesels. The market dynamics have changed and to continually show customers this high headiness is surely going to have its repercussions.
My other thought is that Ford has opened the Chennai plant as an offshore unit to just to utilize the massive labor arbitrage. There presence in India is merely a facade to built its global image but the real game is export.

3. Honda - New City had been panned by almost all reviewers saying that it lacks the new ness that one might have expected from Honda. But look at the sales numbers, the car is flying off the shelves. This just goes on to show that a lot has to do with the brand image and people acceptance in India.

4. Maruti - The gap between 1st and 2nd just keeps on increasing.With Celerio and the upcoming YL1 and XA Alpha, I am sure the trend will continue. What amazes me is why are other companies shy of copying the Maruti model and come up trumps. Agreed that Maruti had head start but all others had the advantage of ground work being done and a template to copy from.

[AMP]

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

I'm not sure why this figure is taken into consideration. Less number of dealerships can be a reason for poor sales, but not a justification. It's not Maruti's or any other brand's fault Honda has lesser dealerships.

I guess GTO wants to convey that the sale of Dzire is not only because of the quality of the product but also due the number of sale points from Maruti. If Maruti and Honda have same number of dealership, then Amaze might cross the Dzire in overall sale numbers

[supremeBaleno]

While number of dealerships is indeed important, I doubt it is as simple as saying that more dealerships will automatically translate to more sales. There are other important things like production capacity difference between both manufacturers which would explain why Honda has lesser dealers in the first place. Also, lesser dealer-points does not seem to be preventing the City from being a best-seller, trumping even the Verna, SX4 etc where Hyundai & Maruti's more dealer-points does not seem to be an issue.

[Kratos453]

Great Analysis. As good as it can get.

I am always amazed by how Maruti does it again and again. Some of the things that bizarres me is the high sales volume of Cars with high volumes of Wagon R and low volumes of Figo. There must be something right about Wagon R or something wrong about Figo which is a better car in many ways.

[vindrider2626]

Originally Posted by Kratos453

Great Analysis. As good as it can get.

I am always amazed by how Maruti does it again and again. Some of the things that bizarres me is the high sales volume of Cars with high volumes of Wagon R and low volumes of Figo. There must be something right about Wagon R or something wrong about Figo which is a better car in many ways.

I think most of the car sales are coming from rural areas, and that too from first time car buyers, who will go for maruti obviously.The other manufacturers do not even have dealers or service centres in remote parts of our country ,that helps maruti too.

[arunkrishnan4]

Originally Posted by vindrider2626

I think most of the car sales are coming from rural areas, and that too from first time car buyers, who will go for maruti obviously.The other manufacturers do not even have dealers or service centres in remote parts of our country ,that helps maruti too.

I too guess the same. If there is a rural-urban spread of car sales, I feel the gap between Maruti and the rest would be lot lesser; and we'll get to see other brands in the top 5 list.

[B747]

Skoda & Fiat produce some of the best cars(Palio,Punto,Octy,VRS) and now they are at the bottom of the chart in terms of sales. Sad to see that being a Skoda owner.

[Kratos453]

Originally Posted by B747

Skoda & Fiat produce some of the best cars(Palio,Punto,Octy,VRS) and now they are at the bottom of the chart in terms of sales. Sad to see that being a Skoda owner.

Though I am not an owner of Skoda I am an admirer of Skoda's work. If given a chance I would purchase a Skoda Rapid rather than a city or even Vento. The real deal breaker for Skoda is their After-Sales.

Though Skoda India has managed a bit improve After-Sales there is still a huge gap to fill. Just see how Verna manages sales in comparison to Skoda Rapid. Imagine Skoda Verna vs Hyundai Rapid, you will find Rapid with higher sales since it's more than anything.

[su1978]

[quote=GTO;3384261]

The Movers & Shakers

To say that Arvind Saxena - new Chevy bossman - has his work cut out would be an understatement. Like Tata, Chevrolet is a severe under-performer in the market. A complete overhaul of the company (branding, dealers, sales & marketing etc.) is the order of the day. After working for 20 years in India, GM India sells merely 5,600 cars in a month! The funky Beat is the only model bringing in some numbers, but 2,415 sales is hardly something to write home about for a diesel B-segmenter. The Tavera is a shadow of its former self, while the Cruze is far from the D1-sedan leader it once was. The Sail sedan & hatchback siblings are now officially flops and it's probably time to pull the curtains on the Spark. In less than a year since introduction, the Enjoy MPV has seen its sales cut by half. GM has been losing crores of rupees in India and FY 2013-14 is no different (link).


Thanks GTO for this wonderful analysis. You have simply echoed my sentiments. Since i am an owner of Spark for past 4 years, i know what a wonderful car it is. The killing point is the lacklusture marketing strategies adopted by GM across all platforms. Despite being present for past 20 years, they have failed to understand indian market. Just contrary to this, new entrants in indian markets are doing wonders. To make matters worse, chinese products in its potfolio(read Sail Hatchback/Sedan & Enjoy MPV) have done them no good. The dealers are another sore points and if all this is not enough, service drives the last nail in its coffin.

Its high time GM pulls up its socks and kicks out the non-performers from everywhere. Else the days are not far off when we will see another Daewoo. Mr Arvind Saxena, definitely has this mammoth task of pulling out GM from the loss making spree. He will have to go for a major re-shuffle amongst the ranks and a major shakeup at the dealership levels. Just wondering if he is able to sleep.

[aniketi]

Originally Posted by Kratos453

Though I am not an owner of Skoda I am an admirer of Skoda's work. If given a chance I would purchase a Skoda Rapid rather than a city or even Vento. The real deal breaker for Skoda is their After-Sales.

Though Skoda India has managed a bit improve After-Sales there is still a huge gap to fill. Just see how Verna manages sales in comparison to Skoda Rapid. Imagine Skoda Verna vs Hyundai Rapid, you will find Rapid with higher sales since it's more than anything.

I agree. I guess Skoda should sell their car designs only. They are one of the best for sure. And Indian companies like Tata, Mahindra & Maruti should buy those designs from them. Imagine Rapid with powerful K-series petrol engine or MJD with Maruti badge and Maruti A.S.S. and VFM price. It will be just great. Or imagine something like New Octavia or Superb with M-hawk engine at 15 Lacs

Is this really possible? I hope this kind of thing should be thought off by our automobile companies. There is nothing bad or wrong to take designs from someone who is really good in it. What say?
Okay, stop dreaming and get back to the work guy's

[jessie007]

Already excited about this month's sales stats. Eagerly waiting to see the impact of Xcent on other mid-sizers, and even hatchbacks for that matter, including Hyundai's own i20.

Inspite of increasing competition, Maruti Suzuki seems to be going from strength to strength. Whenever I think competition will slowly whittle away Maruti's dominating leadership, it comes up with a new block-buster product. Launching the AMT (in Celerio) before the competition was a master-stroke. Even the company whose parent's subsidiary (FIAT group's auto-components division Magnetti Marelili) manufacturers the AMT, wasn't able to take advantage of the available technology. Seems Maruti, inspite of its long-standing leadership has not turned into a lumbering leviathan - rather the management is being pro-active in maintaining the leadership.

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Originally Posted by jessie007

Already excited about this month's sales stats. Eagerly waiting to see the impact of Xcent on other mid-sizers, and even hatchbacks for that matter, including Hyundai's own i20.

Xcent won't have an impact this month as Hyundai is taking its own sweet time dispatching the car. Even test drive and display cars haven't reached all the dealerships yet.

[jessie007]

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

Xcent won't have an impact this month as Hyundai is taking its own sweet time dispatching the car. Even test drive and display cars haven't reached all the dealerships yet.

I believe the stats that the manufacturers give are dispatches to dealers. Even for the 20 odd days since the launch on 12th March, the Xcent should clock atleast around 5000 units, if not more. Though I agree, the full impact will be visible in stats for forthcoming months.

[aniketi]

Just read this news :

http://indianautosblog.com/2014/03/m...ia-2014-126014

Doing 50% of the total business is just outstanding. Isn't it the great news guy's? Maruti alone is fighting against all great players here in India. Great going for them. Now please don't start to say that they have early mover advantage. Others are also here now for more than 10-15 + years. So no more that advantage. With launches of Ciaz and SX4 Cross i am sure they will increase share more. Great going Maruti, Keep it up