Team-BHP - December 2010 : Indian Car Sales Figures

Alto K10 and old alto has sold less this dec when compared to the nov sales.

Maruti seems to the leader.

Very unfortunate for Fiat.

I see a reduction in sales of Figo drastically.

i10 also has sold a bit less when compared to nov 10.

Good to see that Etios has taken a flying start.

Spark and Beat in the same territory,even the best discount didn't boost the sales.
Uva has sold 266 but punto has done only 62:Shockked:.

Estilo also has some good numbers this time.

Micra once again in the same territory

Nano sales has boosted from 500 odd units to 5000 units.
oh my god:thumbs up

Other cars of Tata have sold marginally well.

Good numbers for Fabia

Good numbers for fiesta. The great discount offers really worked.

Good numbers for the City compared to Nov sales.

The best strategy that i would suggest Fiat india is to open up new service networks alteast in major cities in India first followed by all the cities covering in reasonable span of time. What sort of attitude of Fiat India this is. "I WILL JUST SELL THE CAR AND I AM NOT BOTHERED ABOUT THE AFTER SALES SERVICE". The after sales service is one of the critical factors for success in the Indian car market which is the mantra for success for Maruthi and Hyundai. Why Fiat is not understanding this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by swathyd (Post 2195773)

Is there any problem with Fiat plant ? I have this doubt as the number seems to be so unrealistic . And figo sales are down due to fabia sales going up . Dont want to write more about fiat .

If i have to guess, then it is Dealer Stock Rationalization playing here for both Fiat and Figo. Fiat might have sold more cars to dealers than actual retail sales for the whole of 2010 (in order to keep showing high numbers). Now its the catchup time as dealer won't accept 2010 Manufactured car if the inventory is already high. :)

Few Observations
Fiat's downfall "again" is really shocking. Even after making good and wonderfully designed cars these numbers are disturbing. Even Accent, two-three generations old, is selling more than fiat total numbers :Shockked:. They need to pull their socks or will be out of Indian market.

Ford Figo sale is now showing it signs. The vehicle is no doubt value for money but then the interiors and shape are not upto class which its other competitor offers

Chevy Spark, Beat, U-VA and Aveo doing good in numbers. clap:

Swift selling in such a number even though new generation is round the corner shows the Indian consumer trust they have on Maruti. It is almost a no-brainer choice in tier II & tier III cities.

Merc E Class showing good number. Were they offering few lakhs as discount for the year end??

Honda Jazz needs a price revision. Honda cannot keep the car moving with less than 300 sales per month.

And how could I forget the Nano. Feels really proud to be a born in times when Nano was born. There is still a huge market untapped for this segment.

I was planning on booking a Punto in december but have decided to hold out till I get a Jan 11 manufactured GP instead. I think other people who are planning on booking a Punto might have also done the same. For other cars which have better resale values the Dec - Jan booking may not have made too much of a difference in bookings, with the present discounts outweighing the perceived future benefits while reselling. Have a feeling that Fiats numbers will go up in Jan and again in April (after the closure of the financial year)

Quote:

Originally Posted by anu21v (Post 2196068)

I don't know why people on T-BHP are so Anti "U-Va".

Frankly I own a UV-A (Base Model) and One has to ride the car to believe and get that un-real drive, smoothness and reliability which i never used to associate with Chevy Products. In Front and Rear Leg room, it beats some of the sedans outright, incl Fiesta, Ikon, Aveo etc. Even the base models come with some niceties like Power Steering and prices are lower than Swifts, infact somewhat higher than Ritz/Figo.

Rest assured I have driven enough Puntos Figos and Swifts and Polos to get enough feel of cars (Not Necessarily better but in the same level for sure).... And I Love my car .. a lot.
Many a time, when a friend of mine and I go for Long distance driving we take our Uva than his swift because of the ride quality.

Also on the reason why it is still selling. One of my friends went along with me to buy a Beat,,,,,and he saw the UVA sitting there. He wanted to buy Uva instead of Beat after driving both the cars (though I finally pursuaded him to go for Beat, Beat being a longer lasting design and better refinement).

I guess for U-Va buyers its the same reasoning which is selling FIGO in good numbers, i.e. "Lowest Cost/ Sq Foot area." ... i.e. Big Size, Small price.

+1. The UVA is incredibly spacious and is very highly under-rated. If Chevrolet had done a better job of pushing it, we would see a lot more of them on the roads.

I can't seem to find a single car which is bucking the low December sales trend apart from the Nano and Fabia :-)
Marketing/repositioning success maybe.

Ritz is down. Estilo - despite being a roundly criticized car, has been doing healthy numbers. Last month it was at - 4.5 approx.
Beat and Spark hardly ever see a spike or a drop. Even December numbers are similar.
Fiat - I guess this huge dip should only be dealer rationalization. But, why are they not pushing their sales. The std discounts throughout the year.

i10 seems to have fallen off somewhat. It was neck and neck with the Wagon R for the last few months. This time the gap is big. New design not to everyone's taste perhaps ?

Waiting for the Vento figures. I think we might see something interesting :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daewood (Post 2196147)

That is the real reason for FIGO and Punto numbers.
Please don't write an obituary for these 2 fine cars.
Even FIAT didn't invoice many new cars for it's dealers this month.
Dealers were told to sell of unsold cars lying in the yard.

Just wait for jan 2011 numbers and these 2 will be back to normal levels.

Rightly said Daewood. For those who are still shocked by the Ford and Fiat numbers, here is the note on the reason:

There are typically two strategies that companies follow to wholeselling:
1. One to provide Just in time stock for sale
2. To provide advace stock for sale.

Going by numbers its clear Fiat and Ford follow the approach two, these companies typicall make sure the dealer have stock beforehand for sales in Dec.

The isssue is this, the factories cannont manufacture a car on Dec and badge it with 2011 VIN. There is some spl process where they have to underwrite and only then they will be able to manufacture 2011 VINS.
Companies like Fiat Ford prefer to manufacture beforehand and shut down thier plants for maintenance during Dec.

Please understand there are two metrics for any manufacturers which I have been asking even in old threads, one is whole sale and other is retail.

During the month of Dec the whole sale may reflect 1881 but my source says for Ford the retail was actually 9600. That is the truth, wholesale numbers can be misleading at times esp. during the year end. But its the retail number which actually count.
Think about this how many of us will actually buy a 2010 VIN during Jan of 2011. I can bet none, its to tackle this frenzy.

But since the retail is not something thats easily captured the normal practice is to take the wholesale as benchmark.

I can bet going by my idea about the industry that the figures on Jan for Ford and for Fiat will look astonomical. But as I mentioned earlier, its the retail which actually speaks the truth.

Till then the owners of these cars please take a break, same for the Fiat and Ford bashers, we will revisit this post of mine again next month. It looks so funny when people change thier statement about cars like Figo once they see the sales numbers.

Maruti as always is on a roll.

Hyundai doing great with their new i20. Santa Fe sales numbers are a surprise.

The biggest surprise is from Nissan. A 1000 Micra cars. People are not hesitating to buy them in spite of knowing that the service network is tiny. The Nissan brand is not very popular too. Its also surprising that a brand that has very little presence does so well with their first small car. Nissan has also been very quick to bring a diesel. Can only improve sales.

Mercedes Benz doing awesome. I really want to see the new CLS on the road. The earlier model was simply stunning in design.

Good old Ambassador still manages to sell.

Great going for the face lifted Skoda Fabia.

The Toyota Innova is without doubt the best vehicle there is in its class.

I am not a fan of the new Toyota Etios but love that steering wheel.

Nano is back with a bang.

The Ford Figo numbers are shocking and it beats me why they have sold under 2000 cars.

My all time favorite car brand Fiat is in a mess and I am glad. This is the only way it can go for Fiat with their existing network. I do not own a modern Fiat car but have visited their service stations a few times and its a horrible experience. There is nobody to attend to you, you have no place to park your car as there are so many TATA cars all over the place and a ton of cabs and their drivers waiting in the lounge. Now where do you wait? The general approach and attitude of their engineers is not what it should be for someone who just bought a 5 lac Grande Punto, worse still for a T Jet owner. You just can't have a TATA & Fiat product sell and serviced at the same joint. They both need to have dedicated garages. Fiat need to give new buyers and owners the best experience when its buying a new car and to maintain one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bkbkr1212 (Post 2196437)

One thing I noticed was of SX4 ( I own this stupid beast

)
Just 761, almost 500 < Verna.

Soon Linea is going to have a company from the same segment :)

No. SX4 diesel is expected soon. Together with the petrol, SX4 will definitely be ahead of Linea no.s.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hemanth.anand (Post 2196460)

+1 to that.
From some reliable sources, i heard that after dec 10th fiat has stopped manufacturing cars. For confirmation, We called the fiat toll free number and they are agreeing to this fact.

I agree since I talked to a dealer who also mentioned that the plant is closed in Dec and hence all deliveries of colors not in stock will happen in January only. So dealers must have placed orders to FIAT plant in Dec but will receive cars only in Jan.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GTO (Post 2195347)

Some quick comments:

- It's absolute disaster for Fiat. You cannot run a company by selling a measly 275 cars in a month. To put that in perspective, an ol' outdated sedan like the Accent sold nearly 4 times as much as Fiat's cars combined...with their 4 engines and a 100 variants! Or to understand the potential of the Indian market, here's another one : The 50 lakh rupee Mercedes E Class outsold all Fiat models combined. I've interacted with the Fiat team and know they are trying their best. But what's needed is a complete overhaul in marketing & positioning. C'mon, a car like the T-Jet alone deserves to sell 300 units a month.

Hi Cannot agree more... can after sales be the only reason for this? GTO - you mentioned that you had a chance of talking with the fiat team. Did they ever try going on their own for the after sales part of business?

Quote:

Originally Posted by xingamazon (Post 2196416)

Well Buddy, here I beg to disagree.

This same problem of not able to sell any 2010 manufactured cars in 2011 (at same pricing) is with every manufacturer and not just Fiat/Ford. Going by the explanation you have had above, It simply means the Ford/Fiat had sold more than Retails numbers in Earlier months so the earlier month numbers were kind of exaggerated. Like you said their actual retail was 9600 and wholesale just 1881, which simply means they sold 7719 more wholesale than retails in previous 8 months. in the Year end it would always (well almost) be Wholesale for year=Retail of the year.

Till March to november it sold higher wholesale than average Retail Sales, and thats why in December its lower wholesale than year average sales to Match Retail Average.

All the manufactureres would have followed the same strategy in order to keep showing better numbers, even then they roughly got the similar sales numbers in december as previous months.

Rest assured no-one except Toyota/Maruti has the capability to provide Just in time stock for sale since all manufacturers have higher installed capacity than average monthly sales and their sales functions' tendency to keep on showing better than actual sales.

But I would buy a logic if there is a case where Fiat/Ford have offered lower than market offering Year-end discounts in order to protect profitability and branding. But going by much higher retail of 9600 (if true) this can not be the case.