[volkman10]

French car sales decline slowed in April.

France's car sales decline slowed to a 5.2 percent drop in April, raising hopes that auto demand may be about to stabilize.

April registrations fell to 157,859 cars last month from 166,552 a year earlier.

PSA/Peugeot-Citroen lost more market share in April as it posted a 12 percent sales decline.

Renault Group outperformed rivals with a more modest drop of 3 percent as a 7.5 percent fall in Renault brand sales was offset by a 19 percent rise in Dacia's volume.
Volkswagen Group sales defied the slump with a 4 percent advance, while Hyundai and affiliate Kia posted a combined 17 percent gain
Ford sales were down 17 percent while General Motors sales dropped 19 percent with Opel sales falling 2 percent and Chevrolet's volume down 48 percent.



http://europe.autonews.com/apps/pbcs...#axzz2S8CH33kO

[volkman10]

US market:

Toyota sales rise 3%; Camry regains car crown.

Toyota claimed it was the No. 1 retail brand for the third consecutive month, with retail sales up 8 percent. According to Toyota, Toyota brand retail sales totaled 166,678 units, while second-place Ford retailed 159,392 units.

http://www.autonews.com/article/2013...#ixzz2VEesbXy8

[volkman10]

European car sales show little sign of upturn.

France and Germany sales drop by 10%, Italy by 8% and Sapin by 2.6%.

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French, Italian and Spanish car sales fell in May, bringing the crisis-hit European market closer to a two-decade low and dampening hopes for any recovery in 2013.

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[COLOR=#000000]http://www.autonews.com/article/2013...#ixzz2VF8hJBwB
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[volkman10]

VW plant leads May output.

The top 10 plants in North America in production volume in May were VW Puebla, Mexico, 51,370; Toyota Georgetown, Ky., 47,206; Honda Marysville, Ohio, 45,254; Nissan Aguascalientes, Mexico, 45,200; Nissan Smyrna, Tenn., 42,434; Hyundai Montgomery, Ala., 37,374; Ford Hermosillo, Mexico, 36,050; Honda Alliston, Ontario, 35,257; Kia West Point, Ga., 33,700 and Ford Louisville Assembly, Ky., 33,630.

http://www.autonews.com/article/2013...#ixzz2X71WFuXt

[volkman10]

European car sales fall 6% to 17-year low in June

Volkswagen Group posted a 4.4 percent decline in sales, with the biggest drop of 8.9 percent its Audi luxury brand. Sales at the core VW marque fell by 6.6 percent. Skoda's sales were down nearly 7 percent.

PSA's volume declined by almost 11 percent in June

Fiat Group posted a 13.6 percent fall with the core Fiat brand's sales down 6 percent.

General Motors Co.'s sales in Europe dropped 9.9 percent, dragged down by a 23 percent plunge at the Chevrolet brand. Sales at the Opel and Vauxhall marques declined 7.2 percent.

Sales at Renault, gained 0.9 percent as demand at its Dacia low-cost brand jumped 16 percent, offsetting a 3.3. percent drop in Renault brand volume


Bright spots were Ford Motor Co., whose volume was up nearly 7 percent, Renault's low-cost Dacia brand where sales rose 16.4 percent and Volkswagen Group's Seat brand, up nearly 11 percent.

http://europe.autonews.com/apps/pbcs...#axzz2ZC2x6hKU

[volkman10]

September 2013 Sales.

Vehicle sales in Japan rise for first time in 4 quarters.

Spanish new-car sales rise 29% in September.

Renault, Fiat and Mercedes among winners as French car sales rise.

Source: Automotive News

[selvagp]

PS: Moderators, I searched for a relevant thread, but could not find one. Please merge it to relevant thread or delete if this information is considered irrelevant.

http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/1...9BA05220131211

If a country is not profitable for a manufacturer, they could leave the country. That's the message I get out of this news item.

In our country the global players haven't tasted any big success. It makes one think, how long would these big corps persist before shutting shop?

They could blame anything for their failure, be it Govt Policy or lack of demand. For example what will happen to GM, FIAT, Renault, Volkswagen etc who came to India with big plans? If they couldn't adapt to a developed nation's demands what would happen in an emerging market like India?

What happens to people who bought these "German Engineering" or "Italian Beauty" or "American muscle" etc if global players could shut shop any day and run away?

Is Indian Auto industry secure? Lo's of questions cross my mind, I am novice to know the answers hope to learn from your thoughts.

[Technocrat]

Originally Posted by selvagp

They could blame anything for their failure, be it Govt Policy or lack of demand. For example what will happen to GM, FIAT, Renault, Volkswagen etc who came to India with big plans? If they couldn't adapt to a developed nation's demands what would happen in an emerging market like India?

What happens to people who bought these "German Engineering" or "Italian Beauty" or "American muscle" etc if global players could shut shop any day and run away?

Is Indian Auto industry secure? Lo's of questions cross my mind, I am novice to know the answers hope to learn from your thoughts.

Interesting turn of events in Australia howevere i think you are misreading it.

They are only planning to stop producing cars in Australia & not stop selling them. So worst case, the cars & spares might cost more.

So consumers might not get impact but there could be lot of people without jobs if this happens.

Coming back to Indian context, our currency is no where as strong as Australian dollar.

[Mpower]

Like Techno said, its unrelated to India.

In fact its thanks to the emergence of Indian and China as manufacturing hubs that Australia is looking non viable.

Net nett, job growth in these economies is at the cost of jobs there

[Joe M]

I too had this fear for quite some time. Many of the biggest players are finding it difficult to make many of their models sell well here. This, in my personal opinion, is because of some incompetence from the respective models or the pricing strategy. We can find enough examples for the above statement, from the stables of any car manufacturer selling cars here. But many of them use the facilities here as their export hub and make profit by doing so. This is a good trend, as it gives good job opportunities in our country.

In Australia workforce is very very costly compared to that in India. That is the reason they stopped manufacturing cars there. But the car sales is still going strong there, I think.

[Equus]

I dont see much relevance to us here though the manufacturers need to evolve to be able to cater to our different & evolving needs.
- The Indian growing/aspiring middle-class outweighs the american population
- We dont like to buy Indian products too
- Snob is king here

The manufacturers have accepted the fact that although the Indian auto industry will be growing, its also going to be a bumpy ride.

[avira_tk]

Australia faces what every resource rich state faces, a strong currency resulting in cheaper imports and expensive local manufacturing. The automotive industry does not have a future in such an environment, with large Asian hubs of every manufacturer in the area, it only natural that they will shift production to where costs are lower.

The qualified workforce will be left high and dry, mining is hardly in the same league when it comes to quality of life.

[mints21]

India is a very different market and these big players have restricted themselves to Metros and a few major towns. There is a huge potential in smaller towns where people have resources and aspirations but don't have the product. A few of those, who do buy repent later because of service and maintenance. Penetration in deeper markets in India will certainly make them profitable.

One such place is a small industrial town Rudrapur in Uttrakhand. It has major industries like Tata (First Nano rolled out of this plant), Mahindra, Bajaj, Nestle, Britannia, Ashok Leyland and so on. But the car dealers in the city are Maruti, Hyundai. Others like Toyota have a sales outlet with two cars at display in a small shop like facility. If you buy a German car, Renault, Fiat, Toyota or Nissan the nearest and only service station is close to around 30kms in Haldwani. Road side assistance is a big No. In case of a breakdown, it is your responsibility to arrange a flat bed truck and reach the service station.

However, if they restrict themselves to a few major cities, there trouble would never cease and they would continue making weird projections of sales to the parent company year after year.

[Max]

Originally Posted by selvagp

What happens to people who bought these "German Engineering" or "Italian Beauty" or "American muscle" etc if global players could shut shop any day and run away?

Is Indian Auto industry secure? Lo's of questions cross my mind, I am novice to know the answers hope to learn from your thoughts.

Aftermarket will take care of the parts for such vehicles. I use to have Huysung Aquilla Bike which was imported only 500 in numbers by kinetic and I use to get spares for that bike as well but at very high cost. Spares for cars sold in decent numbers will not face any problem in getting spares.

Austrilian situation is not applicable with us because India has huge population and very very cheap labor available to produce cars.

Infect, India is on its way in becoming worlds favorite manufacturing hub to produce automobile provided auto sector gets little support from government.

Regarding German cars, less said is better. Any manufacturer who fails to understand needs of local market, cheat their customers, don't provide value and most important do not provide services for their products will fail in any kind of market.

In summary, Indian auto industry is yet to see its brighter days! It may not be particular brand but overall industry future is good.

[volkman10]

Volkswagen likely to outsell GM in China this year (2013)

When the year ends next week, Volkswagen is likely to have outsold General Motors for the first time in nine years.

That will not only supply another blow to GM's prestige, but make VW the biggest foreign automaker in the world's largest auto market. VW's sales have been running 17% higher for the first 11 months of the year there compared to the same period last year.

VW isn't letting up there, either. Volkswagen plans to invest $25 billion through 2018 to expand in China.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/driveo...china/4211507/