[volkman10]

C/S/M UV craze in India continues,

The passenger vehicle industry was up 6.26 percent and stood sold 2,31,640 units in the domestic market. Out of these, passenger car sales were down by 0.86 percent, while utility vehicle sales jumped 35.88 percent in May 2016

The sales of Passenger Vehicles grew by 8.65 percent in April-May 2016 over the same period last year. Within the Passenger Vehicles, Passenger Cars, Utility Vehicles and Vans grew by 0.50 percent, 39.37 percent and 6.69 percent respectively during April-May 2016 over the same period last year

http://auto.economictimes.indiatimes...-siam/52669577

[RoadSurfer]

No wonder Ecosport's numbers are coming down. It has to do with Ford's Dealership attitude towards customers. My brother has booked an Ecosport in the 2nd week of May. The dealership says that he can expect the car only in the last week of June. Reason being the color of choice (Mars Red) is not in stock. Almost 8 weeks to get a vehicle to Nashik?
Only reason we are calm is because my brother is in no hurry. The other option, Breeza was not considered simply because Ecosport is a better product than the former. No offences here, this is just my personal view.

[i74js]

Originally Posted by RoadSurfer

No wonder Ecosport's numbers are coming down. It has to do with Ford's Dealership attitude towards customers. My brother has booked an Ecosport in the 2nd week of May. The dealership says that he can expect the car only in the last week of June. Reason being the color of choice (Mars Red) is not in stock. Almost 8 weeks to get a vehicle to Nashik?
Only reason we are calm is because my brother is in no hurry. The other option, Breeza was not considered simply because Ecosport is a better product than the former. No offences here, this is just my personal view.

Look at MSIL, even after most of their products are successful the sales staff at the dealership is always good and nice to the perspective buyer irrespective of considering entry level Alto or their top of the line Ciaz.

Flip side, the moment there is one successful product - City with diesel engine, Ford Ecosport etc. the attitude of dealership staff changes altogether.

Three times increase in price of Ecosport at quick intervals, dropping features from Titanium trim; and now reducing price of Ecosport immediately upon launch of Brezza is clear sign of poor vision while taking customer for a ride.

Such behavior cannot be classified as SMART, and though we believe that people have short memory, it is not !

I have several friends moving out of Honda - citing poor after sales service and arrogance (one moved out after buying 3 cars from Honda in last 10 years), and bought Altis this time and recently another friend moved out Ford (after disposing Fiesta) and bought Linea TJet even after talking to dealer for Ecoboost (arrogance even with existing customers).

Maruti is able to manage such large network of dealers in much efficient manner and maintains customer base year after year; instead other players are changing strategies without considering medium to long term impact of their strategy on their growth and market penetration.

[DuHasstMich]

How are the dealers for Fiat(~500 cars) and Skoda(~900 cars) surviving?
With such a low count across the country, I wonder what the stats are per dealer.
Maintaining the showrooms and A.S.S. without any business must be very taxing!

Have these companies just given up hope and are now just waiting for a slow death?

[Ksingh544]

This question has been asked earlier also. But does anyone know why Mahindra doesnt release its figures for the Mahindra Thar.

With the 2015 facelift model the sales have definitely soared, one can gauge that by just seeing the numbers on the road. Couple this with the demand for the DI version in rural areas.

Does anyone have an idea why these figures are kept under wraps?

thanks

Kundan

[autobahnjpr]

Maruti has increased the market share from 47% to 49% inching towards 50%. All at the expense of Tata, Honda and others. Honda is in serious trouble and has to do something quickly to get their product and strategy in order. BRV numbers are very disappointing and both City and Amaze sales are going down.

Hyundai continues the good run with Creta,i10, i20 but Eon and Verna disappoint. Ciaz has outsold City and Verna combined in the month of May!
I guess Innova numbers include the inventory of older model sold to the dealers. If it does not, then it is a super show for Toyota.

Tata has tried to introduce new products but their marketing leaves a lot of be desired. None of their recently launched products have given the kind of success the company was looking for.
Let's see what Ameo does for VW in the coming months given that only petrol engine is on offer right now.

[volkman10]

Originally Posted by Ksingh544

This question has been asked earlier also. But does anyone know why Mahindra doesnt release its figures for the Mahindra Thar.

Does anyone have an idea why these figures are kept under wraps?

Total declared from Press release of M&M is 19635 vehicles. total break up available is for 18349 units, the rest is Thar.

Thar Figures for Month of May 2016 is 1286 Vehicles.

April 2016 is 1547 units.

The Passenger Vehicles segment (which includes UVs, Cars and Vans) sold 19,635 units in May 2016

[Ksingh544]

Originally Posted by volkman10

Total declared from Press release of M&M is 19635 vehicles. total break up available is for 18349 units, the rest is Thar.

Thar Figures for Month of May 2016 is 1286 Vehicles.

April 2016 is 1547 units.

Thank you for this additional information !

As a proud Thar owner thats good to hear. If i was M&M Marketing i would be rubbing these figures int the face of all other so called "SUV" brands out there.

Opportunity being missed here

cheers

Kundan

[anand_lukose]

I can handle all the surprise numbers for this month. Except for the abarth. I just can't believe that they sold just 8 !! I seriously hope the Overdrive hot hatch comparison improves June sales.

My worry is whether this would force them to drop the Abarth Linea plan as well as updates for the Abarth Punto ( a better gearbox ).

Kudos to Maruti. However, I feel they should drop a model and focus that resources saved to clear some inventory backlog. Ritz maybe ?

[YashD]

Originally Posted by anand_lukose

My worry is whether this would force them to drop the Abarth Linea plan as well as updates for the Abarth Punto ( a better gearbox ).

Kudos to Maruti. However, I feel they should drop a model and focus that resources saved to clear some inventory backlog. Ritz maybe ?

Very true! Even though Punto Abarth is targeted purely to auto enthusiasts and is a lifestyle product, 8 units are way too less for such an excellent product. I don't know but I am having thought that Fiat might not even launch the Fiat Linea 125S seeing such numbers. Already, Fiat Linea is not even doing 200 units, I just hope Fiat doesn't ends up pulling the plug. The only thing which can save Linea is a 1.6L Multijet engine, except S Cross none of the other vehicles has it. If Linea gets it, the car will become a niche in the segment, both the normal and enthusiastic consumers may go for it. Moreover, they should emphasis in promoting the Abarth more, initially when it hit the showrooms, there was a commercial which played for a few days but then it was gone! Maybe getting it endorsed by a popular bollywood actor will definitely get it the eyeballs the vehicle deserves.

Regarding Maruti, I feel they should drop Stingray, Ritz and Grand Vitara. All are quite slow moving vehicles in terms of sales and have been in the market for quite sometime. To further improve things, instead of having optional variants for Safety features, increase the prices from Celerio onwards and make them standard across the range barring Alto and WagonR (Even though I strongly feel both should get it but as it's an extremely price sensitive segment so keeping them as optional is fine).

[Aceman82]

Originally Posted by YashD

The only thing which can save Linea is a 1.6L Multijet engine, except S Cross none of the other vehicles has it. If Linea gets it, the car will become a niche in the segment, both the normal and enthusiastic consumers may go for it.

Sorry to say this but I doubt anything can save Linea at this point of time. It just feels too old and from an earlier generation if we add the ergonomics, maneuverability, turbo lag, gear box and in general even the shape when compared to its peers like Ciaz or City.

I owned a Fiat and I am a Fiat fan but even for me the current Linea is a tough sell. It does not help matters that Linea is more expensive than Ciaz and is almost the cost of the Honda City. Both of those cars have a large ASS network and excellent resale value.

As far as 1.6 is concerned, importing and plonking the engine in Linea would shoot up the already expensive prices by another 1.5 lakhs. When doing a TD of the S-Cross along with my colleague, he actually felt the 1.3 to be better than the 1.6 due to the Turbo lag. This would be accentuated more in the heavier Linea making it feel even more of a dud in City conditions.

Finally he ended up going for the Brezza ZDI+ instead of S-cross 1.3 in spite of me explaining all the ways how the S-Cross is better than the Brezza because he felt,

a. Everyone buys the Brezza,
b. Brezza is good looking and is a "SUV" while S-Cross is a bigger swift
c. S-Cross looks weird.
d. BR-V/Creta is expensive and beyond budget though he would have liked to buy a Honda or Hyundai than a Maruthi at 10 Lakhs.

Coming to the Linea 125S , from my personal option, the Honda iVTEC 1.5 was much better than the TJET since the iVTEC felt more eager, gearbox was much smoother, gave better mileage, was far more nimble while the TJET felt like driving Moby dick through congested streets. Hence I doubt 125S would make any difference.

While it pains me to say this but the best option is for Fiat to scrap the Linea and introduce the Agea but even that won't make much of a difference. The best option is to scrap the Fiat brand itself, start with a clean slate for Jeeps and move forward in our SUV crazy market having only the "Jeep" brand. I feel this is exactly what Fiat is going to do.

[vishy76]

-Fiats sales figures are a complete eyesore in what appears to be a growing car market. None of the three cars in their lineup has managed to even cross four digit numbers, although all of them don't cost more than 15 lakhs. There is no new Punto coming in either, and they have no other major launch for now at least. A brand with probably the most driver oriented cars and petrols in its lineup is killing itself here.

-Excellent pricing for the Ameo by Volkswagen on the other hand. The car deserved this kind of pricing, all thanks to the fact that we Indians think that German cars are costly and unreliable machines.

-The Tiago has started off well. But, will it actually be a game changer? I think we will have to wait and watch here as with all other Tata cars. Remember, the Zest and the Bolt both started off well but failed to garner sales and attention in the long term and were duds later.

-Ford seems to be doing well with its crop of SUVs. The ecosport seems to be doing exceedingly well due to the price cut I think. This has made it a VFM product no doubt. The Endeavour is also doing well for itself but I am waiting for the next gen fortuner to see how it stacks up against that.

-Maruti has the same story to tell again. Excellent VFM products, good after sales support backed by a reliable brand image in India means that cars are flying off their showrooms. Not too sure about the Nexa outlets though. The Balenos potential is not being channelised by Nexa is what I believe. On the other hand, the Brezza is doing well being sold through the original Maruti outlets themselves.

-Hyundai is also doing well here although I think that it desperately needs to make a mark in the luxury segments. The Elantra is begging for a new platform and the Santa Fe ends up costing equal to those Audis and BMWs.

-I don't think that Chevrolet even cares about India as a market. Maybe the neglected behaviour towards growing markets is what is costing them dearly when it comes to global sales. Facelifting the Trailblazer won't help chevy. You need a new product lineup and fast. India is not as underdeveloped as you think!

-Toyota's Innova has finally given the automaker a head start in the luxury segment where it failed to make a mark before. Even with the Innova costing as much as a Jetta on the road, the car seems to be flying off showroom floors!

-Renault-Nissan are relying on their mass market hatchbacks on the other hand for some attention. The Kwid and the Redi-go seem to have started off well. However, only time will tell whether they prove to be a run away success. Meanwhile, I am eager for the kaptur to arrive in India and see how Renault prices it. Who knows, their could also be a compact sedan under wraps!
With all these brands competing against each other, the cars are being facelifted and continuously tweaked in order to better their rivals and the end benefactor is always the customer.
All I can hope is that God truly blesses competition!

[neoonwheels]

Originally Posted by DuHasstMich

How are the dealers for Fiat(~500 cars) and Skoda(~900 cars) surviving?
With such a low count across the country, I wonder what the stats are per dealer.
Maintaining the showrooms and A.S.S. without any business must be very taxing!

Have these companies just given up hope and are now just waiting for a slow death?

Service is main business for FIAT dealers. Thankfully they have enough cars (Palio+Punto+Linea) to service and only a single or couple of dealers in the city is helping them survive.

[jpcoolguy]

Some observations from my side -

• Kwid disappoints again, yet to touch 10K mark - will it ever touch? Eon started taking the brunt or is it prelude to the facelift? Alto back to its original numbers after the facelift.
  
  
• I think this is the best ever sales number for Innova in a month - and that is even after huge increase in the price and bans in NCR & Kerala. Now if this is not called loyalty to a brand, I don't know what is !!!
  
  
• Tiago doing decent numbers, but not on the expected lines. The quirky KUV 100 still sells more than Tiago with a higher price band.
  
  
• Swift and Grand i10 neck to neck, Baleno and Elite i10 neck to neck, Brezza and Creta neck to neck - now this is what called competition. Polo has beaten Jazz once again this month which I guess is commendable.
  
  
• Ciaz trumped City taking advantage of the SHVS taxation, but I wonder what happened to Ertiga - dropping close to 1.5K units. Is it the Innova effect? I guess Innova is having impact across the segments - Ertiga, XUV 500, Safari, Sumo - all these numbers have taken a beating in this month. Only Scorpio survives and that G-NCAP results have no impact on the sales, as expected !
  
  
• Tata losing market share in Taxi segment is alarming - both Indica and Indigo lost close to 1K units per month in the recent months. Looks like the Xcent, Etios and Dzire are taking away chunk of Indigo's share and Liva, Ritz taking away the share from Indica. What will Tata do if they are not even able to sell their bread and butter segments?
  
  
• The Compact Sedan space doing steady numbers - let's see what Ameo brings to the table. I see that Zest and Aspire will bear the brunt of Ameo, if at all any since the other trio seems unaffected with the new launches.
  
  
• Looks like first time in history Bolero has dropped below 5K units, which was doing close to 10K monthly average consistently some 2 years back - what a fall this has been. And M&M's strategy also seems not helping either - they are happy selling multiple compact SUVs.
  
  
• Fortuner taking back the crown from Endeavor sums up the position of Toyota and Ford in Indian market context.

[jpcoolguy]

Originally Posted by bageherath

But if you consider Punto Evo and Avventura it is different, which is a better cross over than these as the investment of engineering is more.

Nope, even the sales numbers for Evo and Avventura are combined.

Originally Posted by balajisv

Zest is leaps and bounds better than DZire and XCent as a product. It may not have the Maruti scale of after sales support.

I am not sure whether you are talking about petrol or diesel. But the petrol mills of both Maruti - K12 and Hyundai - Kappa2 are way ahead of the Tata's Revotron.

Originally Posted by Dushyanth

The Hyundai Eon and the Renault Kwid losing a chunk of sales, I wonder this might be the effect of the recently conducted crash tests by Global NCAP in which they failed.
But I see no change in the sales of the Scorpio, Eeco, Celerio though.
That's strange!
Or am I missing something?

If only our market has taken these crash tests seriously then there would have been no Swift, Grand i10 in the first place - but look at their numbers. And it will be the same for these newly tested cars too - no one will give a damn.

I think only way to increase customer awareness, once B-NCAP is in place, advertise the rating of the car as a "feature" and see how our market reacts then