[skjlives]

Originally Posted by xingamazon

I am realy amazed by so many of the fellow people commenting such things abt the ANHC, for heavens sake it is not a bad car at all.
The perception that it is a costly to own costly to maintain is not a view which is shared by its current owners or potential.
What others think of it is not something that Honda should be bothered about.

Frankly, its one hell of a car, and just because Vento has beat it in numbers doesnt take away anything from the car.
Its just a life cycle, few cars come on top, by pushing something down. Its all in the game.

I am a city owner and I do believe that Honda tries to charge more premium for it's brand than it ought to (purely because of lack of quality competition until recently). That does not end with sale and continues with after sales service ("we don't repair, we only replace"), spares (fairly costly for the most part) and a "take it or leave it" attitude.
It is easy to see their arrogance which comes through pricing of products like CRV and Jazz which are slowly but surely getting relegated. I see Honda sliding from here on with strong competition from Hyundai/Ford/VW/Toyota unless they really pull up their socks and lose some of their brand driven arrogance. Toyota for instance, is as good a brand, if not better, and that is not the perception they have. Sure enough, they continue to rise in the Indian market as an increasingly dominant player.
Btw, I also own a Ritz and therefore it is easy for me to compare Honda with a Maruti on so many aspects including ones mentioned above. I am also in the market for a C/C+ car and have absolutely ruled out Honda for my next purchase purely because of their attitude in the Indian market.

[altius]

It is going to be interesting times in the 8 - 10L sedan segment with the impending launch of new Fiesta and Verna. It will bring in more competition and more choice to the buyer. I think diesel Vento would have lot competition from both new Fiesta and Verna diesel particularly if waiting period remains high. City still remains the car to beat in Petrol and only Petrol Fiesta may give it competition.

[figo_united]

Nice to see the Figo maintaining its good run
I'm amazed to see the sales of the santro too! still competing with all the other leaders in the segment!

[METISWHG]

Originally Posted by bluevolt

So comparing the sales figures of a ONLY PETROL powered car with a PETROL + DIESEL powered car will not give the clear idea. The competition should be like this - ANHC versus SX4 Petrol versus VW Vento petrol versus Hyundai Verna and Fiesta Petrol models, diesel models should be compared to their diesel counterparts only. # 6.

People do buy cars basis a budget and compare everything in that budget - petrol or diesel, so not sure its a good idea. Though the smaller u cut segments the better your share might look

[AvonA7]

Originally Posted by PCS

ALTO - 38065
WAGON R - 14885

These 2 figures shows that every car buyer has their own priority/prefernce and the the car which satisfies most of them sells more. Brilliant! a single car from MS sells more than the total no. of car sales from its next competitor !
And both these cars are almost 10yrs old

Originally Posted by download2live

History indeed in making.
Indians are not fools. We do believe in brand following. But to a limit. And Honda crossed that limit.

+1, felt the same about Honda, they command so much respect amongst Indian car buyers but for some reason they are not so much committed to Indian market. Probably the only car maker not to have any diesel cars in India. Only make over of their bread-n-butter City over the last 10yrs, hope they change their strategy and come forward as leading car seller in India.

VW - as a owner of their product - excellent , with only a handful of dealers and no free service (it does matter to many buyers), a tag of "bideshi" car and that too German! with these sales nos. deserve appreciation. Hope this trend continues as Competition among manufacturers can bring the best and most affordable options for us - customers.

[raul]

The Figo numbers are stunning, what a shot in the arm for Ford India. I always liked the product, it has a robust feel about it and ticks the right boxes, the only downside would be the higher maintenance costs perception but I guess the sheer sensibility of the product has won people over.

The Aria numbers are not suprising given its outlandish pricing, car manufacturers need to keep the purchasing power of the country in mind, the addressable markets below 14 is far higher than 17 plus and perhaps Tata will reconsider or get the 2wd out of the door faster.

The Honda city is taking a bit of a beating in sales and in comments however we have to give Honda the credit for always getting their best products here the quickest. They have pushed their luck with the pricing and most Honda's are at least 1-1.5 lakhs overpriced and in the case of CRV the pricing is difficult to understand, and there is perception of an element of greed here and taking advantage of a relatively immature market in terms of competition, its not genuine product pricing and the Jazz is clearly taking a hit because of this, a pity because most folks will concede both the City and Jazz are excellent products.

VW have clearly shown smarter pricing and operational sense than Skoda and they are being rewarded for it. More Kudos to better products and pricing.

[SkyWalker]

thanks GTO!

With solid German diesels in the ring across segments (city,civic,accord), the fight is becoming increasing difficult for Honda. Its time to reinvent yourself guys - just the brandname wont cut it anymore! I am also guessing Etios played a part - people looking for a Japaneese sedan would definitely cross-shop.

VW, its time you take a leaf out of Vento and Polo and make your top end cars successful as well. 38 Jettas? Sounds pretty bad dont you think? Congrats on dethroning ANHC though!

Aria down to 98. I am still wondering who are the 98 who buy this overpriced car! Tata should price this down by at least 3L.

Etios is 3xxx. Not as successful as i would have imagined.

[teamveevee]

Originally Posted by RoadTiger

Hyundai has been behind in terms of new product introduction - some would say they've had unexpected success in terms of large volumes with the i20 - remains to be seen how they keep defending their turf

The new models introduced by Hyundai in US, Sonata and Elantra are well recieved by Americans and closing the gap with competing products from Toyata. Once they come to India, i am sure, they will be a big hit in India too, especially the Elantra. Elantra (Is it called I35?) is a much better product than Vento and Cruz. (Percentage increase from March 2010 is given in bracket)

================================
Toyota Camry / Solara 31,464 (-13.2)
Hyundai Sonata 22,894 (+20.9)
================================
Toyota Corolla / Matrix 30,234 (+2.1)
Hyundai Elantra 19,255 (+134.1)
================================
source: Auto Sales - Markets Data Center - WSJ.com

[srikant]

That was a great month for Auto sales, but glad to see VW raising and also taking over Honda in City Segment.

Now with the launch of the new Passat in 3 variants, and the base model priced near the accord, its gonna take on the Petrol Accord too. The diesel plant in the Passat would be added advantage.

[DRIV3R]

Kizashi outsold the Jetta! Great!

EDIT: Realized that I am wrong!
@Skywalker:

38 Jettas? Sounds pretty bad dont you think? Congrats on dethroning ANHC though!

Jetta sold 205 units buddy, and not 38!

[Mustang.101]

Originally Posted by teamveevee

source: Auto Sales - Markets Data Center - WSJ.com

Data for March '11 in the US

here but i see that the ford F-series sold the max in the US at 52K units while the chevy silverado came in 2nd at 32K.

The highest ranked car in the US that is available in India is the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry, Almost jointly sharing the honors at no. 4 with 31K units.

[Comrade]

Tata, it is time you quickly bring out a 4x2 stripped out Aria around 9 lakhs, and start from there till ~13 lakhs for a 4x4 variant!!! That was/is what Aria supposed to be!!

[vishnurp99]

Honda has to do something about their pricing atleast now.Slash jazz prices by a lakh atleast or kill the production i guess. 152 cars is a pathetic number. Maybe they can do something for their erstwhile jazz buyers so that they don't feel any heartburn but they brought the car at a bloated price didn't they . or they can bring out a watered down version.

City is still a competitive product at that price with the discounts. Guess they can wait till the Fiesta and Verna comes out before coming out with the price corrections. No point in doing it now and then finding out later that the correction is not enough.

[sriramv.iyer]

Originally Posted by vishnurp99

City is still a competitive product at that price with the discounts. Guess they can wait till the Fiesta and Verna comes out before coming out with the price corrections. No point in doing it now and then finding out later that the correction is not enough.

Honda NEVER CORRECTS prices (Exception: The Civic Hybrid which never sold)

Situation: CRV facing competition from Endeavor, Captiva
Honda: Raise the price by 3.25 lakhs to put the number in single digits or low tens

Situation: Accord getting hammered by Superb (now add Passat)
Honda: Release Honda Accord V6 @ 25 Lakh+, and currently it did a facelift, with no one being able to identify what the facelift was about (Sunroof + chrome)

Situation: Jazz Doesnt Sell AT ALL
Honda: Release Jazz X that is 45K more in a special Red (Rally Red) color

Situation: Vento threatening City
Honda: Create a Leather Edition and overprice it

Does any of Honda's reaction above indicate they GOT it in their head? Obelix would say - 'These Honda Management are crazy'

Honda Attitude of 'I am Holier than Though' is seen even in their two wheeler department - Except that there is no one to knock them out ... yet. As time has proven ALWAYS, all these people with this attitude will be knocked off cold.

I write this with a heavy heart, since I also own an ANHC, and it is such a good product

[misquitas]

Originally Posted by PCS

Maruti Sales.

800 - 2915
OMNI- 7808
ALTO - 38065
ESTILO - 4403
WAGON R - 14885
DZIRE - 10278
SX4 - 3632
EECO - 6608
SWIFT - 12114
A STAR - 2934
RITZ - 6059
KIZASHI - 103
GYPSY - 606
VITARA - 14

Kindly put these figures in the opening post, as not many would know that this data is on Pg4 of this thread.

My observations...

* Great to know that the Alto has posted 38K figures. The Nano effect doesn't seem to have dented Alto's performance at all. By resisting the temptation of entering the Nano segment for now and focusing on sprucing up the the Alto, it appears that MS (Maruti Suzuki) seems to have taken a calculated risk (that has paid off) as well as the calculated risk taken by another MS (Dhoni). Waiting for the Alto to touch the 40K mark. Unofficially though, the Alto has already touched the 40K mark, if you include the sales of the A-Star, which is, if I am not not mistaken, the Alto in other markets. If Tata can include the Indica and the Vista in the same camp, I see no reason why Maruti cant do the same. All it has to do is to include three variants of the Alto -- the Alto (800), Alto K10 and the Alto A-Star (or Alto-Star).

* The Wagon R has displaced the I10 as the second best selling car. Clearly, the Wagon-R means a lot to a lot of people.

* The Omni sales never cease to amaze me. A 3-decade-old car that has virtually no frills/fitments and wafer thin safety features but continues to sell 7K+ sales is nothing short of being a legend, though not many (critics of the "bread-box-on-wheels" are aplenty) would want to admit that.

* The Ritz sells less than half of its older sibling, Swift, despite being a newer, refreshed and in my opinion, a far better all-round car of the two.