Here at MotorBeam, the Tata Nano is one of our favourite cars and we really appreciate the engineering marvel done by the company to bring out such a vehicle which could have put many on to 4-wheels. Tata Motors is credited to have brought many to cars with the launch of the Indica way back in the late 1990s. The cheap running costs and affordable price made many people the first time owner of a car. The same success was expected with the Nano but it did not happen for multiple reasons which the whole world has already discussed, time and again. Sadly Tata Motors isn’t quick enough to implement the corrections and sales of the world’s cheapest car continues to be dismal.
Tata Motors was expecting to sell around 20,000 units of the Nano every month, but they sold only 13,828 units between April and December. That is an average of 1536 units a month, not at all impressive considering the Nano is the most affordable car you can buy today. From the same segment, the Maruti Alto 800 does volumes of more than 15,000 units per month while Hyundai’s Eon also does decent numbers which usually revolves around the 6000 units mark.
The last month of the year, aka December, is among the best month for automobile companies as the fear of price hike lures buyers to purchase in the end of the year. In spite of hefty discounts to push sales, Tata Motors only managed to sell 554 units of the Nano in December 2013, a 75% drop in YoY number. It is also the second lowest monthly sales number for the Nano since its launch in July 2009. Selling 500 odd units isn’t a big disappointment since the Nano is only been doing 1000 odd units in most of 2013.
Tata Motors has been vocal about its plans to bring back the Nano to where it belongs. The company will re-position the car as a more upmarket machine while also offering more equipment and better engines. The Nano Twist, which features power steering and minor changes will be launched on the 13th of this month but Tata Motors is taking way too long to bring new variants to the market. While the Nano has largely remain unchanged, other manufacturers have invested heavily in developing all new models from ground-up. Tata Motors needs to do something similar and rather than taking small steps at a time, the company needs a leap to upgrade the Nano comprehensively.
