Renault’s sales in July 2015 experienced a dip as compared to the same period last year as even the Lodgy MPV was not able to do well, experiencing a drop in sales of almost 75 percent from the month preceding last month.
Renault’s fortunes in India changed for the better as soon as the company introduced the Duster compact SUV which was a runaway success that found a large number of buyers. As a result of this, the Renault brand became more popular among customers and the Duster went on to become a segment defining product. However, the Duster now has many worthy rivals in its segment and the popular SUV is struggling to find many sales. It managed to find 1005 buyers as compared to 2821 customers in the same month last year, experiencing a fall of 64 percent in sales from the same period last year.
The French car maker seemed to have found the right formula in the country by investing in the utility vehicle segment after it launched the Lodgy MPV to compete against the very popular Toyota Innova and Maruti Ertiga. The Lodgy performed well in the first few months but its sales have been dropping with passing time. Renault sold just 522 units of the Lodgy in July 2015 as compared to 1947 units sold last month (enormous drop of almost 75 percent). It seems that the Lodgy was selling well only because of the initial hype, even though it’s a very capable vehicle in the MPV space.
The Pulse hatchback managed to clock 94 units with its sales consistently hovering around the same mark. The Scala has always lacked popularity in the C-segment and the company sold just 59 units of the sedan last month as compared to 89 units in July 2014, which is a drop of 34 percent. Last comes the Fluence sedan which has forever been one of the least selling vehicles in the Indian market ever since its launch. It found just 5 new homes last month experiencing a sales drop of 50 percent as compared to July 2014.
Renault’s reign in the compact SUV space has ended and the company will be introducing the Duster facelift towards the end of this year to get the battle going once again. The second best seller from the Renault stable, the Lodgy’s future performance still can’t be predicted for maybe another month or so. However, Renault has the upcoming Kwid on the cards and the hatchback is poised to be a killer product in the entry-level hatchback segment.
