Hatchbacks:
• We have a fresh entrant in the A1 segment : The iconic Tata Nano. Yes, while only 2,500 Nanos were delivered in August 2009, expect this number to increase 10+ fold once production stabilizes. You could have easily added another zero here if it weren't for Mamata Banerjee and all that West Bengal trouble. The Maruti 800 continues its downward spiral with a 26% YOY loss (2,734 cars sold).
• Selling nearly 10 hatchbacks clearly works wonders for Maruti, product overlap naysayers can take a walk. New launches such as the Ritz & A-star, alongwith existing best sellers like the Alto, WagonR and Swift has seen Maruti's A2 hatchback sales climb an astounding 39.3%! Those of you who have invested in Maruti shares must be used to hearing the cash register ring non-stop. Expect aggressive marketing activities & advertising to only increase in the coming season.
• Huge gains for Hyundai in compacts. The Korean giant trots along respectably with nearly 22,000 Santros, i10s & i20s moving off showroom floors. Over the past couple of months, we've gotten used to seeing consistent 20-something thousand numbers from Hyundai. Premium hatch i20 doing better than Hyundai initially expected. YOY sales are up 19.4%.
• 9,600 Indicas & Vistas found new homes in August. A YOU growth rate of 23.7% is commendable without doubt. However, August is the 3rd worst month for Tata in this year (April & July were at 8.5 units), Compare that to Maruti & Hyundai for whom August has been one of the best so far (second only to March), its clear that Tata has its work cut out. Respectable, but there is clearly more potential, especially for the excellent Vista. What is Tata going to do differently?
• Chevy saw its hatch sales climb by 14.3% in August, GM's bankruptcy be damned. As I have posted earlier, GM India's CEO did a fantastic job of managing the PR around the time of its parents troubles. 4,185 hatchbacks sold, a majority of which come from the competent & well-priced Spark. GM India will be satisfied with its current cash inflow.
• Rank no.5 amongst the hatchbacks? Its Fiat. The Punto seems to be settling around the 1,600 odd mark (Palio < 200 cars). Not bad for a brand that came back from nowhere, yet there is clearly a lot of work to be done in terms of taking care of those who spoke with their money (customers) and rebuilding that dented image. Bringing up Fiats lousy August 2008 performance is irrelevant to statistical comparisons.
• Big trouble for the Honda Jazz. Their own estimates were at about 2,000 sales monthly. Well, except for the month of launch (2,032 in June), the Jazz has only managed 50% of the company's original predictions, this only in the 3rd month of sale!! August sales are down to 1,029 cars sold. The market is not going to bite at an 8 lakh on-the-road price, not for a 1.2 liter hatch that doesn't come loaded with equipment, even if it wears the H badge. VALUE is the only thing that matters in the <10 lakhs segment. Honda doesn't have a history of cutting prices, it will be interesting to see how they manage to get the Jazz on track. More features for the same price perhaps? On the positive front, this episode will make the big brands get realistic with their price / profit expectations.
• Skoda managed about 560 Fabias in August, about the same as last year (down by 0.7%), yet an improvement over recent months where it was only doing 200 - 350 cars. Petrol Fabia @ 4.4 lakhs working? 500 hatchbacks is nothing to write home about, the biggest restriction to its success being Skoda's shoddy service, expensive ownership and the lousy 3 cylinder engines.
• The *invisible* act : Ford Fusion. 47 cars sold. I don't know why Ford even bothers with this "confusingly-positioned" car. Atleast tell us now Ford, is it a hatch, an SUV or a crossover? Sedans:
• Nearly 8,000 Dzires (majority) and SX4s sold in August. YOY sales in the positive by 44%. The Dzire has got to be one heck of a profit generator, when you consider that its basically a best-selling hatch with a boot. And the Swift production cost is cheap by todays standards (volumes + 5 years of production).
• The second best selling sedan is the Indigo (CS included) with 2,656 units sold. All is not well though, YOY sales hit by a massive -40.4%. 6 mths now of double digit declines. The market is giving the cold shoulder to the Indigo, this was a sedan that once did a consistent 3,500 - 4,500 cars. You can bet that the Tata management is placing big bets on the upcoming Indigo Vista (based on the Indica Vista). You can bet on its competitive price, keeping Tatas keenness to bounce back in mind.
• The Hyundai Accent / Verna managed 2,537 sales (down 23% YOY), exactly one unit more than the Honda City @ 2,536 (down 8.2% YOY). The Verna & Accent have pretty much saturated, yet what is surprising is the Honda City's yoyo performance. In a recovering market, the August performance is 2nd worse of the year. Average Honda City sales from January to July are 3,900 cars. The upcoming new City with more features has the potential to take it back to a consistent 3,500 monthly tally.
• If you need proof that monthly specials help, just ask Ford. 2,388 Fiestas & Ikons moved, a YOY climb of 60%. We've gotten used to seeing a new "special edition" every month! Just don't ask about the profitability on those 5 lakh Fiestas though.
• Fiat sold 952 Linea's in August, a marginal improvement over the 850 - 900 level that it seems to have settled at.
• The Great Driving Challenge was a terrifically marketed event, yet it did NOTHING to the Cedia. Combined Ambassador, Lancer & Cedia sales are at a pretty embarassing 589. The Cedia is probably no more than a 100 of that. Even the politicians seem to be looking elsewhere, talk about us being spoilt for choice.
• Equally embarassed has got to be the low-cost-but-high-priced Logan. YOY sales down 68% to a measly 469 cars.
• Worst selling sedan : Unsurprisingly, the GM Aveo @ 389. The last 2 months have seen some increase, after a record breaking 28 months of decline. We hear that preparations for the Optra's last rites have begun (only 167 sold in August).
Last edited by GTO : 9th September 2009 at 13:13.
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