[vipulG]

M-800 is on decline and will no longer be treated as a bread-n-butter product for Maruti, that role will be carried out by Altos and Wagon-Rs. M-800 sale will fall down below the 100K mark (116K last year) to give way to Alto, which eventually will cross 150k+ mark (126K last year).

Zen has already started loosing ground in tune with M-800. Slight improvement in sale last year won’t sustain and unless Maruti upgrades its engine, Zen will score less than 50K (65k last year).

Wagon-R will march ahead towards 100K (73 K last year) and nobody can stop her.

Santro will receive a setback. Sales will drop slightly From 103K last year , mainly because it is now ripe old for a revision and both Indica and Wagon –R will continue to erode its market share.

Indica is something like ‘Haathi chale apni chaal..’ , will continue to gain and will be in the neighbourhood of 125k+ (105K last year).

Palio (4K last year) and Corsa Sail (2k last year) and Petra (1.4K last year) will be in the history books by the end of next year.

Getz after losing its shine pretty quickly within just 6 months of its introduction, still reach about 20K (9.9k last year), Maruti Swift will give her a run for the money.

However Maruti Swift will be a disappointment. The hype created so far will fade (but not as quickly as that of Getz) , when people see it is underpowered, missing several features from its European counterpart and comes with a rather steep pricing . Still it will clock somewhat impressive figure (typical for any new car introduced) of 20K.

Esteem will suffer because of Swift and from 21K last year will go down to 15K.

Indigo/ Marina again sing the same ‘Haathi chale apni chaal..’ tune and from 39K last year will reach 50K+ without any problems.

Like Santro, Accent is also due for a revision and that is going to affect its sales, Hyundai will be having a hard time in maintaining the last years figure of 40K.

NHC will keep Honda’s cash box overflowing with money, considering the demand and supply gap (Sold 33k last year) there is no reason why it can’t hit the 50K mark, only plant capacity would be the real constraint for Honda then.

Lancer (3.6K last year) will follow the Palio and Corsa Sail’s path.

Baleno (7.7K last year) will continue to climb but it would be difficult for Maruti to find 10K+ new customers for her in the next year. This model is also due for an urgent revision.

Ikon is becoming a kind of a cult car (earlier that honor was with Zen), Ford will continue its jugglery by messing around features and price restructuring, but sales will remain stagnated. From 21K last year it will be in the neighbourhood of 30K but don’t expect any further upward swing.

Ford Fusion (833 last year) won't impress any further and will find some 2k/3K customers next year.

Ambassador (12K last year) will continue to survive, thanks to Govt / Institutional buying.

Versa sale picked up last year! (4K) But that’s all! No, it won’t be touching 10K next year.

Octy (7k Last year), Corolla (9.8K last year), Optra (8.6K last year) will hold their forts some how. While Elantra (4K last year) will be beaten and Hyundai design engineers will be back to drawing boards.

Mercs, Accords will keep on selling steadily no big noticeable swing here while Sonata, Camry will keep cutting sorry figures. Mondeo, Vectra and Superb will barely survive.

(Note: Last year = Apr 2004 – Mar 2005, Next year = Apr 2005-Mar 2006)



Yee Ha!

[Harrie]

Hmmm... nice figures. The future of the whole india auto industry in one post? Me thinks you didnt take into account the relauch of the fiat palio adventure and the GTX. also the new sonata and the mitusubishi carisma (??) being launched. even if the cars themselves dont do all that good, they will definitely do their bit to rattle up the market leaders' figures.

[speedsatya]

when would the GQ project be completed????????
also what abt the ACTROS trucks,the NHC VTEC, ???????



please tell us about them also.

[Shan2nu]

NHC will keep Honda’s cash box overflowing with money, considering the demand and supply gap (Sold 33k last year) there is no reason why it can’t hit the 50K mark, only plant capacity would be the real constraint for Honda then.

Just read in this months OD that the NHC hit a record high of 4436 units in March.

Shan2nu

[shankaranand]

agree with you rgdg fiat..

fiat should be in history books as quickly as possible.

[islero]

Hmmm.......I wonder how well the new vtec will sell, having ugly-duckling looks but not-so-slow performance.

[lamborghini]

I personally think the Palio figures will rise and so will the Petras.
At the price they are selling for, any one would be willing to overlook the a.s.s. and the 1.2 reports decent FE too.
Mondeo will start selling around 100 units more and the mercs sale will increase specially with the launch of the E 200K Classic.
The Octy if launched in a new guise will sell more then 7K but less then corolla.

[Shan2nu]

Hmmm.......I wonder how well the new vtec will sell, having ugly-duckling looks but not-so-slow performance

I guess it'll do well, not as good as the idsi but good enuf.

Shan2nu

[v_s_natarajan]

what about the innova? from Toyota and the Fortuner?
I am waiting for the fortuner.

[man23ish]

Originally Posted by vipulG

Like Santro, Accent is also due for a revision and that is going to affect its sales, Hyundai will be having a hard time in maintaining the last years figure of 40K.

I don't think so, The new CRDI Accent is a better engine and its sales charts are rising.

The Octi, Corolla sales will increase and eat up into the sales of merc, Accord, Camry, etc.

The Innova and Tavera sales will rise owing to increases buying by fleet-owners.

The new-Safari and Fortuner will decide the pricings in the SUV category.

Cheers,
Manish.

[GTO]

Very very impressive VipulG. That is one hell of a forecast report and made for good lunch reading. I am totally with your opinion on 99% of the predictions.

GTO

[Steeroid]

Good stuff, right on the nail!

YOu havent included the Innova in your forecasts - apparantly they're doing well and surprisingly they have very few fleet/commercial buyers (think that market's ceiling was Rs. 6 lakhs).

Manish is right about the SUV pricing - there will be a minor (because the market is so small) shakedown once the CRDi Safari and the Fortuner are introduced.

I also think the new Octavia will do extremely well if they introduce it at the same price as the current model, because it comes with more space and will therefore appeal to buyers of slightly bigger cars like the Mondeo as well as beating the Corolla hollow.

[nitrous]

vipulG, whoever u are?? any big auto survey designations??

i am totally with GTO on this one.

[navin]

and there will be new launches too....swift, fabia, et. al.

[nishant_kingpin]

A birds eye view of the Indian Car Bazaar. Vipul you covered a great deal within the thread. Sometimes when I look at it in isolation, it seems that most companies are not very serious about India as a big car market. They end up introducing and dragging age old models and sell it for a fortune in the absence of strong competition.

Its only now that we see some serious work on Infrastructure also in the country. Hope the future is as well all dream of it today