[rocketfinger]

Creta and Seltos numbers are literally begging another option to buyers [by Tata or Mahindra]

Kushaq & Taigun, as usual would be placed at a premium which leaves the onus on Tata / Mahindra to present an alternative to Creta & Seltos!

Their cars are going to be safe, will have at par features and would definitely be priced competitively as well!

Come on Tata & Mahindra, are you guys listening?
This is such lucrative space to venture into, world is calling where are you !

[Kln]

Seltos and Sonet are underperforming as compared to their respective siblings, Creta and Venue. This is surprising -- the Creta has a polarising design, and the Venue is gradually getting dated. Also, both the Hyundai offerings have lesser features than the Kia ones. I think "brand trust" is a bigger deal than one would imagine. Fortuner is the clear, undisputed winner in the 35-40 lac SUV segment, and deservedly so. The price hike seems to have had zero effect whatsoever on the sale numbers!

[vsrivatsa]

Interesting Statistics - here are my thoughts:

Maruti: Their mass-market cars continue to sit on top of the charts despite what the competition offers - I guess the reach they have across India ensures that nothing can dent their sales for now. The barebones Brezza clocking more than Venue and Sonet despite all the gizmos and gearbox options that they come with proves this point. I really do hope they come up with a better platform than the Heartect which seems to provide only 2-3 stars of Safety.

Hyundai + Kia: The overall strategy is excellent from a business perspective although I condemn their ethics for selling sub-standard products for India. The Creta + Seltos and the Sonet + Venue growth story seems to be never ending. Creta entering the Top 5 in the number game shows the upward shift in car purchase behavior. The bad press from GNCAP has hardly changed anything for them from a sales perspective and based on that - we can say they won't change a thing w.r.t. Safety going forward also.

Tata: Not a big bang like Kia, but they have slowly and organically worked step by step and continue to climb step by step. The safety first approach of Tata needs to be appreciated. Hoping the new HBX takes them further in this journey

Honda: Their experimental Guinea Pig, the Amaze which was first introduced to kind of launch their diesel engine and later the test bed for the Diesel CVT seems to be the breadwinner for Honda now and in the near future. The City seems to be selling some decent numbers but nowhere near its prime days of the past. We can safely say there is nothing exciting that can be expected from Honda until mid-2022.

Nissan + Renault: They seem to have attractive offerings in form of the Magnite/Kiger twins. Hope they don't get too greedy too soon and increase prices.

Skoda + VW: All eyes are on them this year as they try to come out from their age old mold and launch the Kushaq and the Taigun. Hoping that these are priced competitively and they manage to balance the SUV market in the Creta/Seltos segment with a fair market share and offerings that are safe.

Originally Posted by rocketfinger

Creta and Seltos numbers are literally begging another option to buyers [by Tata or Mahindra]

Surprisingly Maruti is also silent in this space - would be good to see them bring in their Vitara model here (> 4m Global Model). Given that their Brezza is a 4 star GNCAP rated car, we can expect the Vitara to also be better than the Koreans in the Safety department.

Originally Posted by Kln

Also, both the Hyundai offerings have lesser features than the Kia ones. I think "brand trust" is a bigger deal than one would imagine.

Not really, the Creta has all the premium features such as the Panoramic Sunroof, the Electronic Parking Brake as well as the Paddle Shifters. While the features on Seltos such as the 360 degree camera can be had as aftermarket accesories on the Creta as well.

[PrideRed]

Originally Posted by Kln

Seltos and Sonet are underperforming as compared to their respective siblings, Creta and Venue. This is surprising -- the Creta has a polarising design, and the Venue is gradually getting dated. Also, both the Hyundai offerings have lesser features than the Kia ones. I think "brand trust" is a bigger deal than one would imagine. Fortuner is the clear, undisputed winner in the 35-40 lac SUV segment, and deservedly so. The price hike seems to have had zero effect whatsoever on the sale numbers!

Hyundai has better reach. Look at the number of Hyundai's in tier 3 cities or smaller towns. Also many of us here might like the straight lines of say VW or traditional design of Kia, ask a teenager or non auto enthusiast, a lot love the radical design of Hyundai.

[narayan]

Any reason for Innova and Fortuner to have shown a huge month on month spike ? Was it some production outage in Jan ? Can’t think of any market linked factor for this spike

[volkman10]

Segment of the month - Compact Hatchback







-Compact Hatchbacks remained India's biggest segment in terms of volumes for February 2021

-The segment contributed near to 22% of the passenger cars sold in India for Feb'21

- India's Best-Selling Car for Feb'21 was from this segment (Maruti Swift)

- However in terms of growth, the Compact SUVs recorded one of the highest YoY growth in Feb'21 and emerged as the second-largest segment in terms of volumes.

-Premium Hatchback Segment ranked third in terms of volumes and recorded a YoY growth of 33%. Baleno+Glanza commanded over 53% of the segment's volumes in Feb'21.

-Mid-SUV recorded a massive 83% YoY growth and was the fourth largest segment of Feb'21. This segment will see more launches in 2021 and will be interesting to see the how the market share pans out.

-Entry Hatch, MUVs, Luxury Sedan & Premium Sedan segments recorded YoY de-growth in Feb'21

Link

[Kosfactor]

Swift is the go-to hatchback still , while it's just a 1.2 NA engine I happened to read how it was able to keep up with a Tiago JTP on a track. Goes on to show the Japanese engineering's unbelievable efficiency, less is more indeed.

[rocketfinger]

Originally Posted by Kosfactor

Swift is the go-to hatchback still , while it's just a 1.2 NA engine I happened to read how it was able to keep up with a Tiago JTP on a track. Goes on to show the Japanese engineering's unbelievable efficiency, less is more indeed.

Yes, definitely it can and why not?
With thin and lightweight sheet metal, lighter weight in its favor, it should be able to keep up with Tiago JTP.

But irony being, this trait is treated as a feature rather than a reason to be worried of.

[MAS]

Glad to see TATA Safari clocking good first month sales. The marketing team at TATA would be much relieved. Gravitas would have been DOA

The Type 4 Fortuner is off to a great start. So is facelift Innova . Toyota must be laughing all the way to the bank.

Nissan & Renault have been busy due to the new launches. I hope Magnite + Kiger Twins are able to sustain and grow the segment.

[niranjanprabhu]

Originally Posted by narayan

Any reason for Innova and Fortuner to have shown a huge month on month spike ? Was it some production outage in Jan ? Can’t think of any market linked factor for this spike

There was a major strike in the Toyota plant at Bidadi near Bangalore for a good amount of time

[niranjanprabhu]

If we look at how market shares have moved over the last 12 months (I have included Jan 2020 as April was a washout!

We see the following interesting patterns

1. Maruti as a manufacturer has lost market share by over 6%.
We can attribute this to the burgeoning sales of 4 meter SUVs where though Maruti has a good presence in the Brezza, its share has dropped by 12% in this segment. The other segments, where Maruti lost market share, are the bread and butter hatch segment where it lost market share by 5% from over 70% last year, (to the Tatas who grew by a similar percentage) and the sedan market where it lost a whopping 16%+market share to mostly Honda and Tata (Tigor)



2. The march of the SUVs continues unabated
From a market share of 28% last January the share of SUVs as a % of the overall car markets moved up to 37%



In this, the 4 meter SUV has grown from around a third of the SUV market to half the market today! Its a segment on fire and is growing at almost a CAGR (Cumulative Annual Growth Rate) of sound 47% over the last 3 years. This has also come at a serious cost of the market shares of the mid sized SUVs like the Creta/Seltos

[maheshm619]

Originally Posted by Kosfactor

Goes on to show the Japanese engineering's unbelievable efficiency, less is more indeed.

The TIAGO JTP kerb weight is 1051 kg as opposed to 875 kg in a Swift. To quote this as finesse of Japanese engineering is an overkill.

"Less is more indeed" is definitely true as the sales trend indicates.

[Kosfactor]

Originally Posted by maheshm619

The TIAGO JTP kerb weight is 1051 kg as opposed to 875 kg in a Swift. To quote this as finesse of Japanese engineering is an overkill.

"Less is more indeed" is definitely true as the sales trend indicates.

Why not? Lightness to achieve efficiency and reliability is a Japanese engineering trait. It works.

Vitara Brezza, Nissan magnite are around the same or lesser weight and they are 4M in length.

[sunny29584]

Where is the Toyota which cribbed about Govt Taxes? (but not how they price their vehicle)

Crazy good numbers from Innova & New Fortuner.

Any idea of sales distribution between Legender & Fortuner?

[chaotic]

If Tata keeps up it's current growth trajectory, it will overtake Hyundai this time next year!!

They have a similarly broad portfolio (vs. Hyundai) with the only gap being between Nexon and Harrier, if they plug it with a Compact SUV (rivalling creta) and hopefully a Verna/City rivalling sedan, they should be all set.

Way to go