[Aditya]

NOTES:

1: Thanks to the team at Auto Punditz for sharing these sales numbers with us!

2: Only cars that sell 500+ units (and thus, the relevant ones) have been included in the gainers & losers chart.

3. These manufacturer-reported sales numbers are factory dispatches to dealerships. They are NOT retail sales figures to end customers.

[Aditya]

[Aditya]

[Aditya]

[Aditya]

Thread moved from the Assembly Line to the Indian Car Scene.

[jpcoolguy]

Thanks Aditya for the compilation of monthly sales data for October 2018.

Few observations from my side -

1. This festive month turned out to be damb squib, with the market leader MSIL registering their 2nd lowest monthly sales in 2018 which in turn led to 3rd lowest monthly sales in 2018 for the entire four wheeler industry.

2. The market share of MSIL has fallen to the lowest this year with 48.37%, which is the lowest since June last year (47.74%) which was impacted due to introduction of GST. On the other hand, Hyundai has managed to grab 18.5% which is their highest since the same June 2017 (however, the volumes during Jun 2017 were lowest due to the GST anamoly) and if you discount that month, then their highest market share was 18.69% way back in November 2015.

3. Skoda has achieved their best monthly sales of 2018 and in fact, the best sales month after a long time, December 2013 to be precise, when they sold 1,775 units. Superb is having a outstanding run (relative to the segment) and almost matched its younger sibiling Octavia for the past 2 months. Rapid also boosted the sales by selling more than 1K units for the first time this year.

4. The ever competitive C2 Sedan segment keeps changing the pecking order with City overtaking Verna last month. Even though the facelifted Ciaz maintain the segment lead the margin is very thin over the 2nd placed City and importantly sold lesser than last year. After the initial euphoria, which did not even last for 6 months, Yaris has fallen to the last place (6th) in the segment, obviously discounting Linea.

5. Creta has posted its best ever sales of 11,702 since launch and has been consistently selling more than 10K units post the facelift launch. It's outstanding considering the price point it sells which is considered as overpriced by almost everyone.

6. Likewise, Brezza too achieved its best ever sales since launch and has breached 15K mark for the 3rd time. Brezza and Baleno seems to have bucked the trend for MSIL and maintained or increased their sales when all other vehicles have seen a fall in sales in their portfolio.

7. The newly launched Santro sold a decent 8,535 units which is par for the segment and need to see whether it can sell more than 10K units consistently which is the target of Hyundai. Wagon R sold "only" 10,655 units which is its lowest since April 2014 when it sold 9,280 units. This phenemenon could be due to the impending facelift launch or may be impacted by the new Santro launch, the upcoming months will have an answer.

8. MSIL's sales drop cannot be more pronounced as that of the Dzire numbers, which has fallen below 20K units for the first time since the new generation launched in Aug 2017. Also, the new Swift has fallen to its 2nd lowest month since launch after a high last month. Further, Ignis too registered its second lowest sales ever since launch which has impacted MSIL's market share.

9. Seems like the fall is across the Compact Sedan segment, with the new generation Amaze too have lost lot of sales. Surprisingly, Tigor sales have increased and posted it's second best month of 2018, which I guess might be due to the launch of new JTP version. Facelifted Aspire started on a good note, however need to wait and watch how it unfolds few months down the line.

10. Nexon has beaten Ecosport for the second place, third time in a row, in the Compact SUV segment. The Ecosport seems to lost some steam, selling less than 4K units for past 2 months.

11. Camry has fallen to single digit for the first time since the launch of new generation and this was accentuated by the outstanding run of Superb. Land Cruiser and Mustang now sells more than this.

12. Polo overtakes Jazz in the cumulative sales this year, from Jan to Oct 2018. Baleno and i20 achieved their 4th and 3rd best months ever respectively, with i20 breaching the 13K mark for the 3rd time and Baleno breaching the 18K mark for the 5th time.

13. Are Hyundai planning to stop Eon altogether since new Santrol launched or is it just a temporary blip to prioritize Santro's launch due to their production capacity constraints? If it is latter, then it is better to stop Eon since they cannot afford to compromise the production of other vehicles which are bringing more revenue than Eon.

[blackasta]

Datsun - Redigo numbers are falling. Time to do a refresh.

Fiat - yay, century in consecutive months. Party !!

Ford - Facelifted Aspire seeing an upswing. Freestyle paying the price?

Honda - Is this what Amaze shall settle for now that the initial spree is over? City sees an uptick. New CRV immediately seeing some numbers.

Hyundai - What happened to the Eon? completely stopped production to clear existing stock & clear assembly lines for Santro? Creta holding solid. i20 & i10 both increasing sales. Santro opening with 8k sales immediately behind celerio.

Jeep - More or less same numbers for the last 6 months

Mahindra - What happened to the Scorpio? discounts? Good numbers for Marazzo.

Maruti - What happened to the Dzire, Swift, and WagonR? Ertiga numbers understandable as facelift launch is near. Ciaz is still king of the hill, but this month the fight is a lot closer with Verna / City.

Nissan - time to call curtains?

Renault - Kwid is pulling them, but for how long?

Skoda - all models see positve MoM sales - what's hapenning here?

Tata - Tigor sees a major jump - what happened here? Tiago needs some sprucing up to compete, now that Santro has entered the ring.

Toyota - The sad story called Yaris is about to end? Who cares when you are laughing all the way to the bank with Fortuner & Innova.

VW - Nothing much interesting happenning, other than the fact that someone bought a beetle.

[volkman10]

Thanks Aditya for the October sales data:

Higher in all - inflation, interest rates, insurance premiums and fuel prices, in addition to irregular monsoons and devastating floods in Kerala slowed the growth of the auto industry in general. The cost of vehicle ownership is estimated to have risen by about 9% this fiscal as compared with an average of 2-4% for the past five years.
The fall in auto sales will continue as top 10 carmakers is speculated to cut output by 70,000 to 85,000 vehicles in November, almost 25% of average monthly production as they seek to reduce the high inventories lying with dealers.

For Maruti Suzuki, in addition to the above had a low production of Ertiga, with the company transitioning from the older generation of the UV to a revamped variant, also had an impact. With Baleno getting priority on production volumes clocks its all-time high volumes. With high demand this is also true for the Vitara Brezza.
The successful Nexa – if was a brand would be ranked 3rd in the monthly charts and this seems to be a consistent position now. A gamble that has paid rich dividends for Maruti Suzuki.
It is after 17 months that Dzire has sold less than 20k units! The last time Dzire had sold <20k units was in July’17 (14,703 units). Is the compact sedan market shrinking?
Maruti manages to ring-fence the top 5 slots and finishes with 7 out of the top 10 best sold cars in October.

Hyundai’s new launch ‘Santro’ has seen the company recording the highest sales figures, but that again translates to just 5% growth. Hyundai’s Verna relegated to the 3rd position in a challenging segment. The subcompact X-cent too though 3rd in that segment is facing stiff competition from Tata’s Tigor. Hyundai’s Elite ,i10, Creta fall in the top 10 cars of October. Santro beats Tiago and KWID but misses the top 10 slot behind Celerio and no way close to the entry level segment in volumes.

M&M was able to retain its 3rd spot and Marazzo critically helped in that. However, Tata is very close and with the announcement of Harrier bookings – Tata’s chances have gone stronger but is it enough in displacing Mahindra’s from the 3rd position ?
Honda has a flat growth with volumes down in all segments. Honda Amaze has a drastic drop more than that seen in the segment. Honda City volume increases but not enough to lead the segment.

Tata Motors shows consistent volumes in Tiago and Nexon but still unable to find a slot in the Top 10. Looks like it will be behind Mahindra in terms of volumes as no mass market cars are in the pipeline in the near future.

Toyota: Innonva and Fortuner ring in the numbers, Etios and Liva are just about average, Yaris is a dud. What next - Suzuki’s Baleno and Brezza with the Toyota badging ? Pricing styling and features would be the key to these badged products.

Ford gives a mediocre performance and even its Ecosport now falls behind Tata Nexon. Figo is likely to be axed as Freestyle cannibalizes it.

Renault/Nissan: KWID and Redi-Go does the volumes, while Nissan has the Kicks to hope for, not sure when the New Duster is planned for India – 2020?

Skoda/Volkswagen : Rapid /Octavia/Kodiaq does it for Skoda while for VW it is the Polo. Not sure how the group plans to stay afloat till 2020. Even with the new portfolio the group would still considered laggards in the monthly sales charts.

Fiat: Back to its old ways, Jeep Compass its sole hope falls in numbers. With the upcoming fierce competition in that segment and no new products seen in the upcoming portfolio, is likely to be at the bottom of the chart in the next couple of years.

[jpcoolguy]

A look at the Top 25 cars over the past decade in the month of October.

[Turbohead]

Has HM-Mitsubishi stopped sales in India? They've sold absolutely nothing for quite some time now.
I wonder how Mitsubishi owners feel.

Besides, Santro is off to a very strong start! Immense brand recall and brand value is a huge boon for Hyundai!

[Traveler]

Originally Posted by Turbohead

Has HM-Mitsubishi stopped sales in India? They've sold absolutely nothing for quite some time now.
I wonder how Mitsubishi owners feel.

Besides, Santro is off to a very strong start! Immense brand recall and brand value is a huge boon for Hyundai!

Mitsubishi has always been non existent for owners. Have never visited an ASS in the last 6.5 years for my 7 years old Pajero. Apart from ripping off owners they never had anything worthwhile in the service department. Totally in contrast with the amazing machines they build.

[discoverwild]

Originally Posted by jpcoolguy

9. Seems like the fall is across the Compact Sedan segment, with the new generation Amaze too have lost lot of sales. Surprisingly, Tigor sales have increased and posted it's second best month of 2018, which I guess might be due to the launch of new JTP version. Facelifted Aspire started on a good note, however need to wait and watch how it unfolds few months down the line.

Just a small correction. It's due to the facelift, and not the JTP. The JTP is yet to go on sale.

[Muski]

Something very interesting is numbers of CRV sold. It was in low teens just two months ago and is healthy 228 now for a 35 lakh on road softroader. All thanks to the new 120 bhp diesel motor mated with a 9 speed autobox and 7 seats. Hopefully numbers will increase in coming months. This will lead to more automakers releasing their international variants in India.

Another interesting data point is numbers of Marazzo increasing to 3800+. There is no impact on Innova, Hexa or Xuv but seems to me that prospective buyers of Ertiga or maybe even Duster have switched to Marazzo.

Hexa is stable at around 750. This is sad for such a competent product.

[CoolFire]

Marazzo numbers have not cannibalized anything else from Mahindra stable. Hence decent enough. (However new Ertiga may beat it easily)

Santro, on the other hand will eat into Eon and Grand i10 and won't do much for Hyundai overall, except may be better margins compared to Eon.

Tata doing fine to hold on to Tiago numbers despite the Santro launch noise.

One big game changer ahead for entire industry will be the Tata premium hatchback. That, along with its Sedan variant has the potential to shake up Maruti dominance, if it ever could be. Especially true if Harrier and the following seven seater are successful and lift up the brand image by several notches.

Though the view has been proven utterly wrong in the last several years, I will still stick my neck out to say Maruti's market share will fall to sub 40% in the next 5 years and Tata would be the biggest beneficiary. Got to add that Tata is competent of bungling it up big time

[ACM]

Marazzo is a disappointment to me. It should have taken market share from Innova, which is not a self driven vehicle in many of the purchases. The Marazzo interior comfort is comparable at about half the price. The engine is competent and shouldn't matter.

Further if it can't take on Innova owing to perceived reliability and resale then new Ertiga will also bring more of the same at lower prices, so more trouble headed it's way.

Don't know if Test drive vehicle of Tigor JTP partially added to the numbers. (Not the sale vehicles.). But a good performance. Tiago too doing well.

Expecting big numbers from the Santro, at the cost of Maruti and other Hyundai options mainly.

Compass is going the Yaris way, and frankly it needs a 2-3L price cut like the S-Cross received to get a fresh lease of life. Actually if Toyota can cope up with their noses getting stubbed the Yaris could do with the same. Overpriced like the Jazz once was and meeting a worse fate actually.

Superb in a league of it's own.


Verna, Ciaz and City seem to be equally combative and doing equally well to rotate top honours.


Nexon doing well, but what does the market see in the Breeza- A car lover may not understand this, but evidently the Masses love stress free transport rather than excitement.