Team-BHP - December 2014 : Indian Car Sales Figures & Analysis

Is there any way to know the City/Region wise sales? It would be interesting to see the spread of sales for maybe the top 10 cities in India across manufacturers. For Eample Maruti is and will always continue to be the market leader from volume perspective due to their vast network, but it would be interesting to see how they have performed over time in a city like say Bangalore- Are they losing market share?/Gaining?/No impact?

The fact that Ritz still sells respectable numbers attributes to the fact that people know that it's nothing but a "differently-designed" Swift.

If Maruti Suzuki could somehow find a suitable cosmetic uplift for the Ritz-something easy on the eyes plus some nice features like i10 grand- then expect it to make it to top 10 without a fuss. Despite Swift selling good numbers, I know people who are bored of seeing too many Swifts on the road and contemplate buying Ritz instead, only to knock it off due to it's quirky rear.

Honda flip-flop in production volume of different cars has been justified as due to production constraints etc. in the past. It got me thinking if actual demand of individual Honda products might be much higher but sales remain low below total production capacity constraints ?

A look at summary of total sales over last 6 months for Honda-
July 14- 15,701
Aug 14- 16,758
Sep 14- 15,014
Oct 14- 13,242
Nov 14- 15,261
Dec 14- 14,428

With opening of second plant in Rajasthan Feb last year, Honda's annual production capacity doubled to 2.4 lakhs units a year (assuming full operations).1 That translates to 20,000 units a month. The summary above clearly shows that highest that Honda tested its product capacity was in August 14, shipping 16,700 cars. That's 83% utilization (and much lower in other months). Since it has been a year since the new plant became operational, I again assume that it must be functioning at more than 50% capacity. Which it was, given that both plants' capacity is about 10,000 units per month, each, and 4 out of last 6 months, sale was more than 15,000 units.

Bottom line, I do not think that the flip flop in Mobilio, City and Ciaz numbers month on month is due to production constraints. Which makes me wonder again what is the reason.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CarNerd (Post 3618464)

It's shocking to see Wagon R, Bolero, Omni & Eeco in the list. How can anyone buy these century old vehicles in their same old original form? Absolutely shocking. This might be one of the reasons why India ranks low in road safety.

Dear Friend, as Chalu has rightly mentioned, since Mid 2010 if I recall it right, the WagonR is on a totally different platform.

Dimensions, Chassis, Engine, Transmission - Everything!

Secondly, it sells not because of the mere manufacturer tag image - It sells because it is one of the most practical and VFM hatchbacks made in our country that is able to find home even in well educated urban homes for various reasons -

Easy ingress and egress
Roomy interiors
New one is way better in terms of rear leg room as well
Boxy dimensions, making it one of the easy cars to drive around in tight spots
Better engine now (K Series) that delivers little more on power and better on Mileage front too
Taller seating also assures painless experience for those complaining of sitting lower

Now, if you want to come back and talk about the following things - Handling, High speed dynamics, Body Roll, acceleration figures, vulnerability to crosswinds etc, it's not all that the buyers are looking for in a Practical hatch. For those who want, they pick from plethora of options available from various manufacturers anyways.

The WagonR should not be confused with any other people mover like the Eeco or the Omni. This one drives like a car & behaves like one and indeed meant to carry 4 (or 5) occupants easily and keep up with the rest of the traffic when climbing flyovers or starting from that green signal.

Despite its boxy looks and aged design, it still finds buyers due to all these reasons.

And yes, you read it right in my signature. Hence this comes from a WagonR owner, purposefully, with a reasonably acceptable justification than a fanboyish comment :) .

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vitalstatistiks (Post 3618392)

While Tapukara plant was operational in Feb, till mid November it was operating in only one shift which means 50% capacity. Hence, from March to November, Honda's production capacity was 15,000 units.

Also in August, Honda temporarily stopped production of City at its Noida plant which led to huge waiting period. High bookings and demand for Mobilio made it difficult for Honda to manufacture both City & Mobilio at Noida plant.

It eventually shifted City production to Tapukara in September where City and Amaze are manufactured.

I think January numbers would be a true indicator of demand and capacity utilization.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Autolock123 (Post 3618019)

As far as supply is concerned, Magneti Marelli is supplying AMT boxes to Tata and also to Maruti. I think Tata dint do a good job in anticipating the demand for AMT models which resulted into supply constraints and waiting time of more than 6 weeks for Zest AMT

What if Magneti Marelli has contractual obligation to meet Maruti's demand first before fulfilling TML?:) Even Maruti is right now short of AMT kits. Bottomline, It may not be totally TMLs fault.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CarNerd (Post 3618464)

The vehicles mentioned by you are very practical vehicles. Most of the people who buy vehicles for practicality in a limited budget will consider these vehicles. So i don't find anything wrong there. And these century old vehicles are selling for a reason. So don't be surprised to see them topping the charts :) And please lets not talk about road/vehicle safety on this thread :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by teamveevee (Post 3618692)

What if Magneti Marelli has contractual obligation to meet Maruti's demand first before fulfilling TML?:) Even Maruti is right now short of AMT kits. Bottomline, It may not be totally TMLs fault.

The AMT in MSIL petrol cars is of the first generation while in Zest Diesel is the latest generation.

Both agreements for supply has no priority treatment by the vendor, though the vendor itself is not able to produce the desired numbers of AMT units against demand due to few sub-components required to be imported.

MagMar is working towards increased production by giving priority to India against other markets and the situation is expected to improve in next 4 - 6 weeks.

TML, though priced Zest very aggressively, they are feeling the heat and badly need price correction between 10-15K to ensure enough margin for dealers and recovery of the payments to be made to dealers for free services to be carried out during warranty period; not going to happen until the TML clears the backlog of bookings taken for Zest.

Cheers

Quote:

Originally Posted by GTO (Post 3618329)

General Motors & Ford came to India before Hyundai did. What happened to them? Even a noob like Renault is outselling them.

Tata Motors was selling passenger cars before the doors of liberalisation opened up. It's languishing today.

Early birds like HM & Premier sell less cars than some used car dealers I know.

Another early bird - Mahindra - was a minor player until the Scorpio was developed and Qualis discontinued (Bolero sales shot through the roof only after the Qualis' demise). Mahindra was a relatively small player in the eighties & nineties.

Maruti came earlier than most of the players today, yes, but it is also the one who maximised that 'early bird' advantage. Even today, you rarely see Maruti putting a foot wrong. It's among the most aggressive car manufacturers around. Newer players are lazy in comparison.

+1 Very correctly expressed, it is the attitude of manufacturers that is keeping sales down. For some time Fiat was trying to sound aggressive without much happening on ground.

You can get a product/package wrong, customers will give you another chance for that not for attitude. So many products from Maruti has failed but every time they have tried with a different product.