The Big Picture – The year 2012 has passed, leaving behind bitter trails for manufacturers. The demand of vehicles was shadowed by ever rising fuel prices, uncertain policies of government and limited number of exciting launches. Some products like Duster, Ertiga, Dzire pumped in good volume but some like Sail and Evalia failed in doing that by far. But the year 2013 has begun with a very good sign and let’s hope it will act as a good omen for rest of the year. In January, the automobile sales figures jumped by 20% and reached 2,30,204 units in totality. This might be because of spring back effect of customers holding their buying decision awaiting new calendar year. Only 5 out of 14 manufacturers, has lost their sales volume and the rest others gained by a very good margin. Maruti Suzuki sold 1 lakh+ units: a magical figure indeed, after very long time and hence secured its homeland which is number one position in ladder. Similarly Hyundai secured its 2nd position followed by Mahindra and Mahindra at number 3. Almost every other manufacturer also bounced back to their average monthly sales figures. So it turns out to be a real “Happy New Year” for car manufacturers.
Top 20 – Similar to above table, Top 3 positions in following the table remains un-shuffled with Alto 800 leading the chart, followed by Swift and Dzire at number 2 and 3. Maruti Wagon R made a strong comeback in its new avatar and gained healthy 10 positions and ended up at number 4. This comeback is the result of held up deliveries because of incoming upgrade of car. Mahindra Bolero even after clocking impressive sales of 10,659 units, has managed to grab number 5. Maruti Wagon R and Hyundai i20 has pushed every other car down the ladder and hence the table is full of red arrows. Please note that Tata Motors has only one contender remaining in this table which is Indica+Vista range. At the bottom end of table, there are few surprise gainers like Volkswagen Polo, Hyundai Verna and Mahindra Scorpio. Surprisingly, Duster is losing its rank continuously and this time it is down to number 19.
Company Wise Break Up – There are four cars from Maruti Suzuki which managed to clock 15000+ sales figure (considering Wagon R falling short of 15,000 mark just by 19 numbers). A 15,000+ is a landmark which only three other manufacturers managed to cross, taking into account their total monthly sales. The old school Maruti Suzuki Omni and 800 have left behind many in-house new comers like A-star, Estilo and SX4. Please note, Maruti Suzki 800 has been sold in more numbers than Tata Nano. Overall the month January is nothing short of the perfect month to begin a year for a car manufacturer. In totality Maruti Suzuki sold 1,03,026 units in January with MoM sales rise of 25.23%. Hyundai Motors is also enjoying the New Year party and managed to sell 34,302 cars in January with overall rise of 28.49%. For both the manufacturers, it looks like the CNG variants of their entry level cars are bringing in the volume along with their diesel cars.
Mahindra and Mahindra has recorded rise in sales of every car except Thar. But for past two months, XUV 500’s sales figures is lingering below 4000 mark, the reason might be capacity re-allocation to newcomer Rexton which is doing good numbers and shares the same manufacturing plant. Newly launched Storme is gaining numbers steadily over past two months for Tata Motors. But except Storme and Indica range, the sales figures of every other car is disappointing this month too. Tata Nano’s sales figures have reached new bottom even with its special edition having lots of goodies on offer. Now, Nano is calling out loudly for its CNG and Diesel variants. Overall Mahindra and Mahindra managed to sell 26,514 units with 16.49% rise and Tata Motors manage to sell 15,209 units with 7.22% rise.
Toyota and Honda also joins the party by registering rise in sales by 10.42% and 28.5% by selling 13,329 and 5,451 units respectively. It looks like Honda has started dispatching the new CR-V and hence the sales figure of it has seen some movement after very long time. Other than this, no remarkable change is observed in sales figures of both the manufacturers.
Ideally there should have been lot of action in General Motor’s stable with the new launches but there is none. Sail U-VA sales figures has started to fall down just few months after its launch which is not at all a good sign. Sail sedan is in its inception phase so we will comment on it the next month. Still thanks to those new launches, the sales figures have shown overall rise of 7.66% for General Motors in January. Drastic drop in sales of new and old Fiesta and Endeavour has made sales figure of Ford to drop by 6.98% in January.
Volkswagen’s sales figures are a surprise package of New Year party as it showed sudden surge in sales of Polo hatch which grew by more than double. This rise is sales of Polo took overall sales figure of company to 6,920 units with rise of 55.02%. But for Skoda, the sad story continues with sales figures not picking up the pace for past few months. Skoda recorded 20.15% of fall in sales as they sold just 2057 units in January.
For Nissan, sales figure of 4055 is like a New Year gift for them as they managed it after long time. Their main offering Sunny and Micra fared well and hence took the company sales figure up by 67.63%. For Renault, falling sales of Duster has created a matter of worry. The falling sales of Duster is taking the overall sales of the company down, which managed to clock 4,914 units with a fall of 17.05%.
Fiat and Hindustan Motors have recorded fall in sales as usual. Fiat managed to sell 347 units with fall of 5.96% and Hindustan Motors managed to sell 430 units with fall in sale of 10.60%.
Category Wise Break Up –
Gainers Vs Losers –
Podium Finishers –
Things To Look-Out For –
– Ford Ecosport is likely to be launched this month.
– How New Honda CR-V gets welcomed here.
– Performance of Vista series after a launch of D90 version.
– How Sail twins performs.
