[livetodrive]

Seems no one wants to buy a new car in last month of the year. Ford, Kia, Jeep all have suffered.

Hope 2021 starts with a positive note.

[Gansan]

How to find out EV sales figures when there are no separate models like Kona, but main stream models include EV?

[RaghuVis]

Good show by the Top 3!

One thing that we can see consistently in the past few months is that OEM's are putting lesser burden on dealers and dumping less to them. Conversion rates for December is more than 80% for all three top OEM's with Hyundai hitting the deck with almost 100% conversion to sales . With data from AP, MP and TS added, it will be much higher. Good relief for the poor dealers who have been having some tough time in the past year!

[kedar191]

It's highly unlikely that Kia has been impacted by the GNCAP ratings, negative publicity, etc.

Anecdotal instances:
1) Kia showrooms have been jam packed through the lockdown, and continue to remain so.

2) The waiting period for the Sonet has been increasing since November.

3) Factory shut down in the last week of December. Dispatches from Jan 4th onwards have been MY2021, according to my SA.

4) The potential price increase would not have impacted sales, but the waiting list. And it does not seem to have done that either.

As some people have pointed out on this thread, most car buyers do not go into the details of GNCAP ratings and this would rarely impact the purchase decision of an average buyer.

I predict that the January numbers would show a drastic swing back in favour of the Sonet.

[niranjanprabhu]

Its been a tumultuous year and an amazing decade that has come to an end!

Other than the major market shares held by different manufacturers mentioned before I would like to share my views on how the contours of the market have changed and are changing

SUVs have come of age and constitute a third of our market compared to less than 5% a decade ago!

A manufacturer like Hyundai and its sister company Kia have completely upset the applecart of existing SUV champions like Mahindra.

The markets are slowly but surely moving away from lower priced cars (Sub 10 Lakh cars BTW still constitute 60% of our markets but they are down from where they were a decade ago) and moving towards cars priced in the 10-20 lakh range. This is especially true for SUVs most of who are priced in this range.

In the SUV market, the 4 meter long SUVs are the ones that are growing at a very high rate of close to 47% and the mid sized SUVs comprising of the like of the Creta, Seltos and the Duster are also racing at a rate of almost 33%. This space will attract huge volumes and investments. Even fragile brands like Nissan has been able to hit jackpot in this segment. The introduction of the VW/Skoda cars like the T-Cross, Taigun, Kushaq etc will only set the segment on fire this year. How they will be feature and price managed given the strong presence of the Korean twins will be very interesting.

Wonderful time to be alive for the avid Indian auto maniac!

[ASP007]

No Thars dispatched in December? A couple of days back I happen to see the Dec. 2020 sales report, wherein M&M had dispatched 2,670 Thars for the month.



Source

Mahindra received 6500 bookings in December alone and that should reflect in their January-February sales chart. Most of the buyers would be insisting for year 2021 manufactured units.

[Abhi5868]

All the noise around Toyota & Kia's declining numbers and here I am happy to see the Superb selling well. An acquaintance of mine chose it over a Pre owned 3series and I'm happy that I recommended a healthy car( admit it- your car's sales number do make an impact mentally).

[sodapop]

Originally Posted by steadfast

Observation 1 - Creta, Seltos and Sonet sales down by 12%, 39% and 48% respectively. However, sales of Brezza shot up by 56% to 12.2K, Venue by 33% to 12K and Nexon by 14%.

So few questions here -

a.) Is Maruti's strategy of Petrol only actually paying off and customers are indeed choosing petrol?

I think this is mostly due to plant closures in December for maintenance work and upgradation as well as minor feature changes that happen. Hyundai has those in December which leads me to think that it is the reason for the low dispatches. I'm not sure about Maruti but they might be having the plant closure in November. Don't think NCAP scores have had as much impact.

How can we explain high sales of a relatively old Venue versus new Creta, Seltos and Sonet? Is it discounts? Is it impact of GNCAP crash ratings? Any other factor that you think?

For the venue I just think they might have enough stock available because being an old product, they might now have a clear picture of the demand whereas Kia is still catching up with sonet bookings.

Observation 2 - New i20 is selling in similar numbers to old i20; actually declined by 12% from Nov to Dec. However, Baleno and Altroz witness a marginal growth in same period.

So my questions are -

a.) Did Hyundai change the i20 generation earlier than required as sales boost is not clearly evident?

b.) Is there a capacity max out for I20 at Hyundai plant and they do not plan to add to it?

c.) Overall have the quality and safety issues started hurting Hyundai? Because I believe a person buying Maruti is very clear of poor safety traits but a Hyundai owner gives a benefit of doubt on safety.

The new i20 has not really been a smashing super hit like the previous generations. I think this is mainly because of having Venue at the same price point as well as some variants being priced a bit too optimistically. Ofcourse the same plant closure might also play a role here. Also as far as I can see i20 has been pushed to the back in terms of marketing and product visibility with the newer, better margin products like Creta taking the limelight for now.

[Napalm]

Originally Posted by volkman10

Car Sales in India for the Year 2020 – Maruti manages to grab 50% Market Share!
- Even without diesel model in its portfolio, Maruti managed to sneak in Market Share of 50% for CY2020!

Link

Exactly. This makes me believe that Maruti may never need to/will never launch diesels in any of their small cars under 4m size.

All their hatchbacks & sub 4m cars have been killing it in sales numbers with just NA petrol engines. Talk about market domination! When cars like Swift, DZire, Baleno etc sell double the number of total competition cars with diesel & turbo-petrol engines, why will they bother to ever launch a diesel engine in them?

Even the Brezza with only 1 Non-Turbo petrol engine has pretty much been at the top of the segment and maintaining a sales of around 12k+ per month(plus Toyota Urban cruiser numbers). This is in spite of all the strong competition with diesel & turbo-petrol engines from KIA, Hyundai, ford, TATA, Mahindra etc.

Maruti may only launch diesels in future in larger cars like the S-cross, Future-Creta-rival, Ertiga/XL6, Ciaz etc. Possibly Brezza too, but never in any hatchback. Looks like Maruti did manage to convince its buyers that diesel is not worthwhile.

If they just launch the planned strong-hybrid in any of these cars with 32Kmpl mileage, Indian car buyers will go bonkers and Maruti might further increase their market share going forward.
https://auto.hindustantimes.com/auto...059600509.html

Originally Posted by niranjanprabhu

SUVs have come of age and constitute a third of our market compared to less than 5% a decade ago!

A manufacturer like Hyundai and its sister company Kia have completely upset the applecart of existing SUV champions like Mahindra.

This space will attract huge volumes and investments.

Totally agree. The year 2021 will see the Mahindra & VW/Skoda fight the Creta/Seltos with the much anticipated new-gen XUV-5OO & Scorpio and
the Taigun/Kushaq cousins with high localisation levels and hopefully competitive pricing. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out.(Get the pop-corn ready )

[karanddd]

Originally Posted by Roadster17

2nd - There are manufacturers like VW, Skoda, Tata, Jeep, Ford which despite making better cars are poor in their marketing skills.

*

I just don't get this. What exactly about VW and Skoda econoboxes is all that better? The reason they don't sell is because people are practical and want, above all else, a car that they can rely on, that gives them peace of mind. VW and Skoda and to some degree Tata also are unable to deliver this. Reviewers don't have to live with the cars they enthusiastically praise but even today I just wouldn't buy a Skoda because I don't want some weird electronic gremlin or engine or gearbox issue to pop up, with replacement parts that take weeks to arrive and cost a bomb. What I know (and most customers also know) is that even if you crash your Suzuki or Hyundai, you can have your car back in 2 days with genuine parts without completely wrecking your wallet. That's a big thing. I think it's time to retire the myth the Indian customer is somehow stupid and surface-level in their decision-making, in fact if anything it's the manufacturers who are stupid and surface-level. For years Skoda has had a terrible after-sales reputation, yet they did nothing for the longest time, happy to cruise on their "premium" reputation – VAG cars just generally come with bargain bin parts that go bust fast. The future of cars in India is Korean and Indian, not European, which is completely reasonable.

[sunilg33]

Toyota is still facing employee unrest issues in its bidadi plant and hence the low numbers. The production is not yet to the normal capacity according my friend who works there.

[ZenMaster]

Originally Posted by aniketi

Now XL6 also selling more numbers than Innova. Insane pricing by Toyota to blame here. Cab people are not able to afford Innova anymore for taxi business. Initial investment is too high and very difficult to get good returns from it. Hope Toyota will learn a lesson from it.

I don't know if they'll actually learn their lesson or copy their homework from Maruti and badge engineer their Ertiga/XL6 to bring an affordable little brother to the Innova.

[TusharK]

New vehicle registrations up by 11% in December 2020

According to the data released by the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA), vehicle registrations increased by 11% in December 2020. Overall sales stood at 18,44,143 units, compared to 16,61,245 units in December 2019.



The automobile segment witnessed YoY growth for the first time this fiscal year. A good crop season, better offers in 2W segment, new launches and a fear of price increase in the month of January kept the demand high.



The CV segment continued to see demand even though the segment saw a YoY de-growth of 13.5%. Increased intra-city goods movement continued to help SCV’s outperform M&HCV segment.



The tractor segment continued to grow for the 6th straight month.

2-wheeler sales increased by 11.88% to 14,24,620 units compared to the same month previous year.



3-wheeler sales were down by 52.75%. 27,715 units were sold compared to 58,651 units in December 2019.

Passenger vehicle sales increased by 23.99%. 2,71,249 units were sold compared to 2,18,775 units in December 2019.



Commercial vehicle sales dropped by 13.52%. 51,454 units were sold in December 2020 compared to 59,497 units in the same month previous year.

Tractor sales increased by 35.49% to 69,105 units.

Team-BHP's detailed analysis of the December 2020 sales figures (December 2020 : Indian Car Sales Figures & Analysis).

[Balaji31582]

One trivial question. Why doesn't Maruti bring in an AMT for the F8D engine (Alto 800)? They can just give it in VXI trim to start with, if they think it will affect their margins.

[vk007]

Originally Posted by tristis2008

Tiguan's sales have picked up really well. Were there substantial discounts of late?

Yes, a few of my friends purchased the Tiguan Allspace and got great deals in Hyd. A fantastic car that was marred by bad pricing. The discounts helped close many deals.