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Old 13th November 2022, 13:31   #1
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Sales performance of the Team-BHP cars of the year

Sales performance of Team BHP CoTY

Sales performance of the Team-BHP cars of the year-1.png

Sales performance of the Team-BHP cars of the year-2.png

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  • Hyundai, Maruti, and Toyota never won Team BHP CoTY title despite delivering some real sales champions in a few segments.
  • Despite bringing in some enthusiast-appealing cars, VAG never won Team BHP CoTY title.
  • Two cars of the year were flops: the Tata Nano and the Mahindra Marazzo.
  • SUVs always got over 40% of the votes while winning the yearly contest.
CoTY is awarded in the launch year, however, products have to live long and sustain sales throughout the product-life-cycle (PLC) and even after generation changes. Here is the analysis of PLC sales volume to review actual sales performance.

2009 Tata Nano & 2016 Tata Tiago

Sales performance of the Team-BHP cars of the year-4.png

The Tata Nano was one of the most innovative but overhyped product, which gave a lot of nightmares to Osamu Suzuki (Chairman Suzuki Motor) before 2010. Nano was supposed to sell around 2.5 lakh units annually; however, total lifecycle sales could reach only 3 lakh units as Nano was completely rejected by the Indian audience. Even Tiago’s sales were higher.

Sales performance of the Team-BHP cars of the year-5.png

Tata Tiago was the spiritual successor of Tata Indica, however, it never attained the market share that Indica had in the past. Tata Altroz, launched in 2020, attained a higher market share than Tiago in 2021. So as a turnaround project, Tiago served its purpose but was not quite a match for its predecessor or a sales benchmark in the industry. Despite being cost-competitive, Tiago has established the appropriate safety standard in the industry.

2010 Ford Figo

Sales performance of the Team-BHP cars of the year-6.png

The first generation Figo was a success until the facelift, after which the Figo lost its way, and the second generation was a disaster, leading to Ford's exit from India.

Rise and fall of Ford India

2011 Mahindra XUV 500 & 2021 Mahindra XUV 700

Sales performance of the Team-BHP cars of the year-7.png

The XUV 500 was a runaway success, and so is the XUV 700. However, PLC management was not that great for the XUV 500, and it suffered a lot towards the end when the next generation was desperately needed. If Mahindra had ramped up the production capacity of the XUV 500 to the 2011 wholesale level, then the underutilization of plant capacity would be over 1.6 lakh units till 2021.

Sales performance of the Team-BHP cars of the year-8.png

With a 5-star crash test safety rating, powerful and diverse drivetrain choices, better suspension, and a tech-loaded package, Mahindra has provided much stronger armour to the XUV 700 to stay competitive in the long run. Despite a strong order bank, it is time for Mahindra to not get complacent and strive for a higher market share.

2012 Renault Duster

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If a product strikes the right chord with a potential customer segment, then what’s in the name? Duster was a definitive product that gave birth to a soon-to-be hot and aspirational segment and did well in the early part of PLC. Renault, however, failed to properly plan and execute the Duster's lifecycle, resulting in the product's discontinuation in 2021.
Duster couldn’t score a four-star rating in the GNCAP crash test; however, successive products like Triber and Kiger scored well despite having a very low entry price point.

2013 Ford Ecosport

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A definitive product that never lost its appeal despite increasing competition. If Ford India hadn’t become so complacent on Ecosport, then it could have done even better.

Rise and fall of Ford India

2014 Tata Zest

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As a turnaround and bridging project, Zest simply served its purpose. A four-star safety rating in the GNCAP crash test was a commendable achievement for Zest.

2015 Renault Kwid

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Maruti, Hyundai, and Tata have commanded 84% to 97% of the hatchback market share between them since 1998, thus leaving less room for others to succeed. So Renault came up with a path-breaking product and achieved remarkable success with a 7% hatchback market share in 2016. But then complacency set in, and Renault, being the typical poor parent, again forgot to manage the PLC of the Kwid well, resulting in poor sales after 2017.

2017 Jeep Compass

Sales performance of the Team-BHP cars of the year-13.png

Besides being compact premium offerings, the Jeep Compass, Skoda Yeti, and Hyundai Tucson have one thing in common: a 2L diesel engine option. Compass is locally manufactured in India and exported to other RHD countries, whereas other two had a CKD operation. Thus, Jeep Compass pricing was competitive (relatively) at the time of launch, thus creating a much bigger market for itself than others. The rest of the PLC is simply a roller coaster ride, as the graph suggests.

2018 Mahindra Marazzo

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Kia Carens has done what Mahindra couldn’t do with the Marazzo. That is, finding a place to live and thrive even while sandwiched between the Maruti Ertiga, the XL6, and the Toyota Innova. Marazzo had the safest rating among all competitors, with a four-star GNCAP crash test rating.

(How Maruti cracked the Compact MPV code with the 2nd-gen Ertiga & XL6)https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/247158-how-maruti-cracked-compact-mpv-code-2nd-gen-ertiga-xl6.html

2019 KIA Seltos

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Kia Seltos is perhaps the most successful TeamBHP CoTY, as demand is still strong even after three years of existence and cars are selling without discount. It checked all the boxes that Indian customers value, except for safety. It seems that particular box doesn’t exist. Still, it could not topple the Hyundai Creta in 2020, as the latter has changed the rules of the game with the first panoramic sunroof in the segment.

Sales performance of the Team-BHP cars of the year-16.png

Together, Hyundai and KIA have decimated the competition in 2020.

Sales performance of the Team-BHP cars of the year-17.png

Challengers have re-emerged, but they expanded the segment rather than hurting Hyundai-KIA’s volume.

2020 Mahindra Thar

Sales performance of the Team-BHP cars of the year-18.png

The changed value proposition—easy to live with every day as an off-roader—of the Thar second generation has changed the game for Mahindra. Now, it appeals to city dwellers with different lifestyle aspirations. In reality, Thar is purchased more for show than for any serious off-road adventure. However, Mahindra has correctly identified a previously unseen emotional need and has shown the courage to develop and deploy a petrol engine for Thar, along with an automatic transmission. Some are trend followers, and some just create one with the Jeep Wrangler concept and design rip-off. What differentiates the Thar from the Wrangler is a good score in the safety crash test rating.

Team BHP CoTY GNCAP safety rating

Sales performance of the Team-BHP cars of the year-19.png

Last edited by Aditya : 15th November 2022 at 21:45. Reason: Link tags fixed
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Old 14th November 2022, 09:21   #2
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Re: Sales performance of the Team-BHP cars of the year

Beautiful thread, PQR . Your reports are always such a pleasure to read.

When I vote on the Team-BHP COTY poll, I vote for what I think is the "best car of the year". Either in terms of engineering & product competence levels (XUV700, Compass, Seltos), a gamechanger (XUV500) or something completely innovative (Nano). These could reflect in the market performance....or not. The mainstream market is putting their money on the product, while we are voting as enthusiasts.

TL;DR version is = Out of 13 Team-BHP cars of the year, just 4 can be termed flops (Nano, 2nd-gen Figo, Zest, Marazzo). Of these 4 flops, 3 are from our homegrown boys while just 1 is from an MNC. I definitely see some level of patriotism & pride as influencers in the COTY votes.

Last edited by Aditya : 14th November 2022 at 13:36. Reason: Minor typo
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Old 14th November 2022, 09:54   #3
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Re: Sales performance of the Team-BHP cars of the year

Quote:
Originally Posted by GTO View Post
When I vote on the Team-BHP COTY poll, I vote for what I think is the "best car of the year". Either in terms of engineering & product competence levels (XUV700, Compass, Seltos), a gamechanger (XUV500) or something completely innovative (Nano). These could reflect in the market performance....or not. The mainstream market is putting their money on the product, while we are voting as enthusiasts.
Agree to this 100%. Even for me, when I vote for COTY poll, it is just the car launched that year and meeting the criteria (as you mentioned above) for COTY award for that year. It is a selection purely from within a small (and artificially defined) subset of cars available for sale in the market.

However, when I buy a car, the selection set is much bigger. I would usually buy a car launched a couple of years ago, with all niggles sorted out and enough test drive reports and ownership reports available for me to assess the strengths and the weaknesses of the car more accurately. And if most people think like this (I believe the market data shows they do), then the COTY will not necessarily correlate to sales volume.

Another point, which I learnt the hard way when running my own startup, is that an innovation is hard to sell. The more innovative and "out of the box" the product is, harder it is to sell. We developed products where it was easy to win innovation awards (even at international level) because of the sheer innovative ideas and cutting edge tech behind the products, but we could not sell those as easily as we thought. And this is generally true across the industries and across the product segments.

@PQR, thanks for the nice detailed analysis and a very good report. But I would not expect the COTY to show any correlation with sales volume because of the above reasons.

Last edited by Dr.AD : 14th November 2022 at 10:24.
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Old 14th November 2022, 10:11   #4
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Re: Sales performance of the Team-BHP cars of the year

Quote:
Originally Posted by pqr View Post

The XUV 500 was a runaway success, and so is the XUV 700. However, PLC management was not that great for the XUV 500, and it suffered a lot towards the end when the next generation was desperately needed. If Mahindra had ramped up the production capacity of the XUV 500 to the 2011 wholesale level, then the underutilization of plant capacity would be over 1.6 lakh units till 2021.

Attachment 2378958
Attachment 2378958



Tata XUV500?

Anand just skipped a beat!
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Old 14th November 2022, 11:40   #5
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Re: Sales performance of the Team-BHP cars of the year

Wonderful analysis pqr! It was delightful to read through it.

Some observations -
1. Mahindra secured 3 COTY in last 4 years. 2 of which are blockbusters.
2. None of the COTY which are discontinued came back with 2nd gen except XUV 500/700. Few of them (Duster and Ecosport) were even super successful. This just shows the poor life cycle management and management intent.
3. Ford India was never able to dispatch 5000 monthly copies(average) of Ecosport(domestic market) even at its peak. It was supposed to be a volume product.

Last edited by abhi_tjet : 14th November 2022 at 11:44.
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Old 14th November 2022, 11:54   #6
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Re: Sales performance of the Team-BHP cars of the year

Great Analysis PQR. Kudos!

Whether success or flop, the sales of the Team-BHP Car of the year increased in next year of being crowned. At times the launch year is not full year so that's causing some skew, but we can still take pride in saying that Team-BHP Car of the year award adds to the sales

This may also point to the fact that these were the best car that year but then sometime in future, the competition brought in better products in SAME SEGMENT, causing sales to dip.
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Old 15th November 2022, 07:08   #7
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Re: Sales performance of the Team-BHP cars of the year

Great topic and equally great analysis PQR. Loved reading the stats trying to make my own conclusions. I have always wondered about the sales aspect when I look at the CoTY choices from different magazines and websites.

One thing you have rightly pointed out is about the PLC management of product. I see that except Maruti and Toyota with their more successful models, most makers in Indian market do not have any PLC management in particular. In the last 20 years, a handful of models like Alto, WagonR, Swift and Innova have done successful PLC management.

XUV 500 and Duster were 2 products which could have and should have done a better PLC management. They both were winning models and internationally, makers ensure such models dont die. Some of the most successful models which continue to exist even today include Mini(1959), Corolla(1966) and Camry(1983). There are many other such models which have continued for decades. Their success lies in the transformation from one version to the next and keeping up with the trends in the market. For eg: the Mini of the old looks completely different from the latest version which includes variants like Clubman and Countryman. This is sorely missing in Indian market. For eg: instead of launching XUV 700, Mahindra could have improvised on XUV 500 and made XUV 700 as some variant of XUV 500 like say XUV 500 XL or something like that.

More than complacency, Ford and Renault lacked the focus on Indian market otherwise they would have succeeded for sure. Ecosport continues to sell in US and Europe even today.

Coming to innovation and new products as Dr. AD mentioned above, there are two parts to it. Incremental innovation on a tried and tested platform sells instantly. Case in point is the Kia Telluride which is a roaring success. Kia took the basic 7 seater SUV format and innovated on it by adding their own bells and whistles. Such is the demand for the product that people pay almost $10k over the MSRP of the vehicle and there is a waiting time of 90 days for the car in US.

On the other hand, break-thru innovation is very hard to sell and its a painfully slow evolution for such products. Case in point being Toyota Mirai which is the first commercial grade Hydrogen fuel cell car. There is nothing wrong with the concept itself but, its struggling to make its mark due to various reasons and Toyota may kill it in next few years if it doesnt get enough traction and sales.
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Old 15th November 2022, 07:15   #8
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Re: Sales performance of the Team-BHP cars of the year

How come Tata Nano with monthly average sales of 2614 units is a Flop while Ford Figo, XUV 500, Renault Duster, Tata Zest and Jeep Compass with lesser units than Nano are not?

Sales performance of the Team-BHP cars of the year-screenshot_20221115065328.png
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Old 15th November 2022, 10:04   #9
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Re: Sales performance of the Team-BHP cars of the year

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Originally Posted by mchandra13 View Post

XUV 500 and Duster were 2 products which could have and should have done a better PLC management. They both were winning models and internationally, makers ensure such models dont die. Some of the most successful models which continue to exist even today include Mini(1959), Corolla(1966) and Camry(1983). There are many other such models which have continued for decades. Their success lies in the transformation from one version to the next and keeping up with the trends in the market. For eg: the Mini of the old looks completely different from the latest version which includes variants like Clubman and Countryman. This is sorely missing in Indian market. For eg: instead of launching XUV 700, Mahindra could have improvised on XUV 500 and made XUV 700 as some variant of XUV 500 like say XUV 500 XL or something like that.
Our market is different from International market.

"Why should I 'upgrade' to another XUV5OO paying more than twice the original price?"

When this question was asked to me, XUV7OO name was not made public, the name change was necessary.

Quote:
Originally Posted by CarNerd View Post
How come Tata Nano with monthly average sales of 2614 units is a Flop while Ford Figo, XUV 500, Renault Duster, Tata Zest and Jeep Compass with lesser units than Nano are not?
Nano was supposed to compete with 2 wheeler industry and roll out around 2.5L units per year. I had a Nano Genx, it should be displayed in a Museum of frugal design \ engineering etc but as a car it could only exist as long as M800 was in production.
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Old 15th November 2022, 15:15   #10
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Re: Sales performance of the Team-BHP cars of the year

Though Marazzo is a sales flop, its still a very competent vehicle.
The looks are not to everyone's taste and polarizing.
But it drives very stable and a good mile muncher.

No wonder it was chosen as COTY by Bhpians.

I hired it multiple times, whenever a 8 seater was required.
Mahindra should have given a proper facelift and features to Marazzo.

Last edited by RaceHorse : 15th November 2022 at 15:17.
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Old 15th November 2022, 19:51   #11
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Re: Sales performance of the Team-BHP cars of the year

Slightly off topic, but there are very few car names in the market which last beyond a decade. Ideally the best cars of the year would translate to great sales, a great brand and last for longer. Hope to see some of the recent ones last much longer.
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Old 15th November 2022, 20:54   #12
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Re: Sales performance of the Team-BHP cars of the year

It's much like merit students who are school or college toppers. As a rule, all of them are not successful in their workplace/s. Many mediocre students do well or even better than merit students at their workplace/s.

So also for the COTY's. They're freshly out, they are liked, we vote for the then most deserving. It's not necessary that the most deserving ones at that moment would remain most deserving during later years of their model lives.

Last edited by anjan_c2007 : 15th November 2022 at 20:56.
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