The compact sedan segment has found a new member, the Ford Figo Aspire that has taken the second spot directly in its debut month.
The largest selling body style in India is hatchback and after that is the sedan segment that contributes to around 23 percent of the total car sales in the country. Compact sedans are the ones that are driving the sales forward and it is a sharply growing segment. Now all of us are aware that the Maruti DZire is an undisputed champion among compact sedans and it’s also one of the largest selling cars in India. Competition or not, the DZire’s sales continue to increase and no new model has affected its popularity.
Since the DZire has clocked 18,718 units in August and is out of reach against its rivals in terms of sales, let’s talk about the rest. The new entrant to this segment is the Figo Aspire that has replaced the slow selling Fiesta Classic. The new Ford has garnered tremendous appreciation from Indian car buyers within the first month of its launch by clocking 5176 units. The Aspire has directly taken the second spot in compact sedan sales, thereby overtaking established rivals from Honda and Hyundai.
The new entrant has actually managed to dent the sales of some very popular cars like the Hyundai Creta and Maruti S-Cross did. The strong seller Honda Amaze has moved a position down with 3260 units compared to the last year’s 9198 units, which is a whopping 65 percent decline in sales. The Hyundai Xcent with 3202 units sold has also seen a 42 percent decline. The Tata Zest comes in last as it sold only 2006 units. Tata Motors has big hopes for the Kite sedan and Volkswagen is also coming up with a Vento CS (rumoured to be called Bora). It would be interesting to see the segment’s future sales.
