[nikipedia87]

Looks like people have taken kindly to the Duster's price reduction last month. It saw a healthy surge, though nowhere close to the numbers it used to do a few years ago. I'm guessing a good part of the despatches were for the AWD and the petrol CVT variants.

[jpcoolguy]

Thanks Aditya for the Monthly sales figures for the month of Mar 2018.

Few observations from my side -

1. This is the best sales month ever in Indian Automobile history, coincidentally fuelled by 4th best month ever for the Top 3 manufacturers - MSIL, Hyundai and M&M.

2. Ford was able to sustain 9K+ units for the 3rd time in a row, which is commendable - the facelifted Ecosport is surely making its presence felt here.

3. Creta sold more than 10K units after a brief hiatus - the last time was Aug '17.

4. Tiago and Nexon are teasing the 10K and 5K levels respectively but yet to breach them. Good thing for Tata is the consistency in sales of both these vehicles and especially Tiago was able to successfully outsell Celerio for the 3 months combined this year.

5. Alto displaced Dzire to grab the Top position and the new Swift has almost breached the 20K mark.

6. It seems Swift is adding new numbers rather than poaching it from existing cars. Grand i10, Baleno and i20 - all have increased or maintained their numbers since the launch of new Swift, except Ignis.

7. KUV 100 breached 3K level, possibly due to launch of "Trip" variant?

8. The ever interesting C2 sedan segment is throwing up new leaders almost every month and the order is also changing as well.

9. Honda had a good month with its stars City and WR-V selling well and back to their normal numbers.

10. M&M also had a very good month fuelled by the sales of old workhorse Bolero, selling more than 9K units after a long time (in Mar '15, it sold 10,481 units), and Scorpio.

11. 62 units of Rexton, possibly the last of the stocks are being cleared before the launch of XUV 700?

[joy_swift]

-- Datsun selling Redigo+ consistently at 2700 units which is impressive.

-- Jeep Compass continue to sell 2000+ units,that should encourage Jeep to bring in Renegade sooner rather than later.

-- City and Ciaz selling more than the facelifted Verna.This should worry Hyundai.

--Maruti has become like Aamir Khan,one blockbuster performance after another.Alto at 23k,Baleno at 16k,Dzire at 22k,Swift at 19k,Brezza at 13k and Wagon R at 14k.Even Eeco is selling 7000+ units.They seem to be in a league of their own and the Indian buyers trust them in terms of performance,reliability and service.

-- Nexon at around 4500 units while Ecosport at 5300 odd units,will the Nexon AMT be a gamechanger for Tata?

-- Toyota continue its success with Fortuner and Innova.Wonder whether the dismal sales of the rest of the models forced them to align with Maruti.

-- Volkswagen,Fiat,Skoda - Is there any future product which can resurrect these companies?Hope they do not exit the market like Chevy did.

[Rajeevraj]

The newer competent premium products from the VAG group are being well received in spite of commanding a premium and without any significant change in the dealership and after sales. The Kodiaq, Superb, Octavia and even the Tiguan and Passat are doing numbers that are respectable in the segment.

Wonder if the VAG group management will realize that and plan on bringing in the latest iterations of the mass market products. Looks like an easily way to give a good bump to the sales instead of being stagnant in the 4000 unit range forever.

[jpcoolguy]

A look at the sales for the month of March historically (from 2011-18).

[PrasannaDhana]

1. 4 year old Ciaz outselling new Verna, City has lost its sheer dominance long back. Whenever it places first, Ciaz is a mere few hundred units away.

2. Safari Storme selling in 4 digits (army order I guess)! Makes me glad as I picked one in March .

[feluda86]

City-Ciaz-Verna battle is fun to watch (Yaris will shake things up I hope). Honda with constrained production capabilities is managing to keep up with Hyundai and Maruti. The demand for City is still very high - 2-3 months waiting as of last month in Pune for 2018 made cars. I have a feeling Honda is deliberately tuning the production of City to keep that waiting time. In the short run it creates an illusion of demand and in the medium to long run it keeps dealers happy with more orders and less backlogs. Amaze expectedly drops to low numbers this month with the update round the corner and Honda stocking up to meet the initial demand. WRV surprisingly is doing well - it is nothing but a jacked up Jazz (which has better driveability). WRV's sales just goes to show what the SUV image can do in the Indian market.

Maruti's pace is scary to say the least for the Indian market. With great market share comes great responsibility. I hope they live up to that on the safety and emissions front. The market follows what the leader does especially when it has over 50% market share.

[RAHS]

-> Surge in sales volume of Duster seems to be the effect of price correction. Clearly that made a difference. Renault should have done this when they launched the facelift back in 2016. Anyways, better late than never. Renault should launch next generation Duster soon to compete in current SUV market in India.
-> Captur is dead on arrival. Hardly any takers. Surprisingly, I haven't spotted any Captur on Bangalore roads so far They are just on display and test drives. Sad state for a brand new product!

[chiranjitp]

It seems that the Ford ecosport facelift is doing well, despite ever increasing prices. The Figo twins ought to sell more, maybe the upcoming facelift with more equipment will increase the sales. If all three Figo derived cars combined can sell around 6k per month, then I guess Ford will be happy with them.

The other car in the top 20 that interests me is the Maruti Omni . Even after 30 years, sales show no sign of slowing down. Our Omni is closing in on the 19 year mark & it is still chugging along nicely. So it has to be said that even today there aren't many cars that can match Omni w.r.t reliability & cheap maintenance, the cheap maintenance part is also due to the basic, utilitarian construction of the Omni (leaf springs at rear, ladder frame chassis). I also don't think that all of the Omni's sold (around 6000 per month) are for commercial use, maybe some are still bought for personal use in semi-urban, rural areas.

[PrasannaDhana]

Originally Posted by chiranjitp

. Our Omni is closing in on the 19 year mark & it is still chugging along nicely..

How many km have you covered in your omni? I am curious

[chiranjitp]

Originally Posted by PrasannaDhana

How many km have you covered in your omni? I am curious

Current odometer reading is around 104k km, which is not much if you consider the age of the car. Most of the running happened between 07-12, we have only done 24k km since 2012 (when we bought our Punto MJD).

I commented on the reliability aspect because our Omni is still on the original suspension, even the steering hasn't been touched yet. I believe how long these things lasts contribute to the low maintenance cost & low maintenance cost is very important to a typical Omni customer. We also have a 09 M800 in our family that is closing in on the 100k km mark, that car has also been very reliable but still it has gone through a suspension & steering box overhaul. So, w.r.t maintenance costs the Omni even beats the mighty M800.

[volkman10]

Auto sales this past fiscal FY18 is just a two - sided affair - It's Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai Motors in the top ten.

One out of every two cars sold is a Maruti Suzuki!

Here is how their cars sold in FY16, FY17 and FY18

Between them they account for the top 10 slots based on sales last fiscal

Link

[GTO]

A look at some of the tricks that manufacturers use while reporting numbers.

Source & Full Article

Recently, one of the Japanese two-wheeler makers choose to include Nepal’s sales figure in domestic sales, while the other French carmaker suddenly (probably after its best-selling car saw a decline) decided to stop sharing its sales figure on the first day of every month.

The country’s largest two-wheeler maker has shied itself from sharing the domestic and exports number separately, and would rather share a combined sales figures. Similarly, another two-wheeler maker has also adopted the same reporting method for the last few months.

There is an unsaid formula in terms of report filing the number 1 and number 2 in both the passenger vehicle and two-wheeler space. Most of the time, the number 2 will behave in a disciplined manner and wait for the big brother to send out, and minutes after it will follow the order.

Although, the standard practice is to reveal the year-on-year sales figures, but they share month-on-month (m-o-m) figures to evade the decline in sales and show a growth in the m-o-m basis.

But the story is a bit different for the German luxury carmakers. For the past few years, they have not only stopped sharing their monthly report with the media but also with the SIAM.

[sunny29584]

Highest ever sales at the time of highest ever petrol/diesel prices!!

From 'Kitna Deti Hai' to 'Fill up the tank, swipe my card'

[1.2TSI7DSG]

A lot of speculation about Yaris changing the game of the Ciaz-City-Verna dominance.
My 2 Cents:

From the previews at least I am getting a feel that Yaris is to be positioned as the feature-rich car in the segment. Going by the Toyota Pricing standards, It may be priced well above the segment altogether. There is a gap of a worthy sedan in the 15- 20 l segment. Going ahead with the plans of the single Gasoline engine being launched, it will be difficult though not impossible for Toyota to change the segment dynamics.

Personally, I am of the opinion that the Yaris will give the City VX & the Verna SX a run for the money. Other than that all the cars have a dedicated segment who swear by their cars.