[Iconoclast]

One look at the trendline of Kwid sales in India (see snapshot below) makes me wonder why it has not been deleted from the Renault lineup already. For a small car like this with low margins; it makes very little business logic to sell with these numbers.

The entire small car space has been under pressure; because of a secular trend in favor of bigger cars. This trend accelerated post Covid; leading to several OEMs discontinuing their offerings in this space - Tata Motors (Nano), Hyundai (Eon, Santro), the entire Datsun badge etc. Despite this, all the remaining nameplates have seen a decline in sales - the Alto has gone from being a 20k/month+ car to an average 14k/month and the S-Presso is struggling to stay relevant.

Evidently, this segment just doesn't appeal to anyone anymore - even to many first time car buyers.

[vharihar]

Originally Posted by Iconoclast

One look at the trendline of Kwid sales in India (see snapshot below) makes me wonder why it has not been deleted from the Renault lineup already. For a small car like this with low margins; it makes very little business logic to sell with these numbers.

The entire small car space has been under pressure; because of a secular trend in favor of bigger cars. This trend accelerated post Covid; leading to several OEMs discontinuing their offerings in this space - Tata Motors (Nano), Hyundai (Eon, Santro), the entire Datsun badge etc. Despite this, all the remaining nameplates have seen a decline in sales - the Alto has gone from being a 20k/month+ car to an average 14k/month and the S-Presso is struggling to stay relevant.

Evidently, this segment just doesn't appeal to anyone anymore - even to many first time car buyers.

The trend of moving towards SUVs and compact SUVs is largely due to lousy roads in most Indian cities, progressively deteriorating with time. Sedans especially just can't take it, hence their sales have taken the biggest beating.

Small hatchbacks too, partly due to the same reason as above, and partly due to improved inter-city highways that call for higher power vehicles for optimum use.

Hence the overall uptick in SUV and compact SUVs.

[neerajku]

Maruti continues to remain at the pole position. It knows every bit of the Indian market, except a 4-5 duds in its 40 years history. A small car maker with a mix of Indian and Japanese leadership has shown that it knows what we want. People may scoff at its small size in the global sweepstakes and its limited engineering expertise but it remains quite valuable in market cap and makes good money. Never bites more than what it can chew and makes haste slowly. Critics may continue to believe they dont know the ABC of pricing, marketing, management, dealers' mindset and may be even basics of finance when they launch their cars. They are good and they know it.
Eventually Toyota may acquire it but it is one a kind. Wish they looked beyond India into more competitive markets and develop bigger cars. May be with Toyota they will.

Hyundai and Kia are another ones who have understood our market well though one spectacular failure has been Tucson. And also Santa Fe. they have been launching them for almost 10-12 years now and each one has been a spectacular failure. Is it pricing, value, durability, future, not known. Why experts recommend others to buy them, cant understand.

Skoda and Volkswagen, dont think they have any clue of the Indian market. Not single blockbuster in the last 20 years. All that ting, tong, tung barely sell. Expensive, hard to maintain and never seen delivering enough value. Consumers have shunned them, no one knows what research they do.

Another one is Jeep, except initial years of sales fuelled by Jeep nostalgia, always in the dumps. No one wants, except a set of minuscule set of enthusiasts. Another one which will soon close down for sure. How long the PE folks see so much cash burning.

Honda is another one, just a half leg pony now. Elevate is DOA and City in the ICU. Many of us wanted to buy that SUV, looking at the specs , surely not.

We will have to keep relying on the top 3-4 players for the foreseeable future.

[vharihar]

Originally Posted by neerajku

Maruti continues to remain at the pole position. It knows every bit of the Indian market, except a 4-5 duds in its 40 years history. A small car maker with a mix of Indian and Japanese leadership has shown that it knows what we want.

Absolutely nothing of that sort. Maruti sells in India simply because it's the longest-standing (time-wise, viz. since circa early 1980's) car brand in India and word of mouth in India is the biggest advertiser. There are a zillion car buyers in India (Team-BHP is but an inconsequential minuscule fraction) who know very little about cars and just buy based on word of mouth, what they see mostly on roads, etc.

[Zippy_wheels]

Originally Posted by neerajku

Skoda and Volkswagen, dont think they have any clue of the Indian market. Not single blockbuster in the last 20 years. All that ting, tong, tung barely sell. Expensive, hard to maintain and never seen delivering enough value. Consumers have shunned them, no one knows what research they do.

Given the lesser number of Showrooms and Service Centers, they seem to sell quite well in Tier 1 cities. To increase sales, they need to consider expanding to the Tier 3 cities/rural areas since they are virtually unknown in that market. I recently went on a trip, across MH-MP-UP-Jharkhand and back, and hardly saw any VW/Skoda's (especially the new models) - I can count the numbers in my hands over a month long trip. Their major market seems to be Mumbai,Pune, Bengaluru,Kol, Delhi etc. I faced some issues with the car while I was in MP and the nearest Service Center was 400 kms away. Who, in that area, will buy a car whose service center is so far away especially since people in rural areas would typically be more price conscious and unwilling to experiment? I saw a lot of Creta's, XUV300's, maruti's but no VW/Skoda/Jeep etc. They need to realise, that given the cars they are building, they are not a premium brand and if they have to sell more they need to go deep into the indian hinterland - unless they don't want to, and want to keep acting like a premium brand.

[neerajku]

Originally Posted by Zippy_wheels

Given the lesser number of Showrooms and Service Centers, they seem to sell quite well in Tier 1 cities. To increase sales, they need to consider expanding to the Tier 3 cities/rural areas since they are virtually unknown in that market..

Showrooms are a function of demand and supply and not because the company alone wants it or its buyers. If there was enough demand, dealers would have been falling over each other to open showrooms and make money. Less demand and hence less showroom. It is not even familiarity, they have been here for nearly two decades. If there a was huge pent up demand I am not sure why would the company not open more, sell more and earn more. People are not buying for a variety of reasons and hence they are where they are.

[neerajku]

Originally Posted by vharihar

Absolutely nothing of that sort. Maruti sells in India simply bcoz it's the longest standing (time-wise, viz. Since circa early 1980's) car brand in India and word of mouth in India is the biggest advertiser. There are a zillion car buyers in India (TeamBHP is but an inconsequential miniscule fraction) who know very little about cars and just buy based on word of mouth, what they see mostly on roads, etc.

May be you are right, longevity may have its advantages, Premier Padmini, Hindustan Motors, Lambretta, Kelvinator, Vijay, Standard motors, Kinetic should have heeded this and continued, who knows they would have been market leaders by now, minting loads of money. :-) :-)

[vharihar]

Originally Posted by neerajku

May be you are right, longevity may have its advantages, Premier Padmini, Hindustan Motors, Lambretta, Kelvinator, Vijay, Standard motors, Kinetic should have heeded this and continued, who knows they would have been market leaders by now, minting loads of money. :-) :-)

Not a right analogy. The Maruti cars when first introduced in early 1980s were a significant step up over the Premier Padminis in technology, features and aspirational value. So the change that happened (of Premier Padminis losing out) was understandable, it was but natural.

In contrast, the Hyundai, Ford, Tata, etc cars when they later came, were not a significant step up over the Marutis.

[diwakarmuthu]

Carnival sales has been 0 for the last 2 months. Has Kia stopped taking orders for the current gen Carnival? I was expecting they would throw some discounts to their existing inventory, guess there is no inventory

Mahindra needs to work on their orders. Scorpio and XUV700 together has more than 14k deliveries in May. Both cars are running 18+ months of waiting period.

[sreejithkk]

Originally Posted by vharihar

Absolutely nothing of that sort. Maruti sells in India simply bcoz it's the longest standing (time-wise, viz. Since circa early 1980's) car brand in India and word of mouth in India is the biggest advertiser. There are a zillion car buyers in India (TeamBHP is but an inconsequential miniscule fraction) who know very little about cars and just buy based on word of mouth, what they see mostly on roads, etc.

I no longer believe in this argument that Maruti is selling because they are here for the long time. We have been hearing this for the last 10-15 years. Maruti is staying because they launch the relevant products for the majority of the market and they have a wide coverage of service network. Ford, GM, Honda etc all were in India since late 90's and Ford and GM already left, and Honda is struggling just because not launching/updating their portfolio with relevant product on time. If Maruti had not launched products like Swift, Brezza,Dzire, Baleno, Grand Vitara, Ertiga, Fronx etc, and just continued with revised versions of 800,alto,zen,esteem etc they would have faced the same fate as Ford, GM and Honda. While they are not as aggressive as Hyundai/Kia, I do not think they are that complacent. Because unlike other Major players, for Maruti, India is their only major market and I think they will still focus to remain the relevant/major player in this market.

[neerajku]

Originally Posted by vharihar

Not a right analogy. The Maruti cars when first introduced in early 1980s were a significant step up over the Premier Padminis in technology, features and aspirational value. So the change that happened (of Premier Padminis losing out) was understandable, it was but natural.

In contrast, the Hyundai, Ford, Tata, etc cars when they later came, were not a significant step up over the Marutis.

First mover has its advantages but only if backed up technology, innovation, quality, CSAT, price value equation. Maruti did all this and much more. Else if it was only first mover then GM, Ford would have just stayed for another 20-30 years and then made tons of money !

[Aditya]

Originally Posted by ranjitht87

Seems figures of Astor (592) and ZS EV is swapped (1397).
FADA electric PV auto retail figures for MG is 437.

These charts are created according to the sheet provided to me by Autopunditz. Might be some discrepancy with the FADA charts.

[pqr]

Originally Posted by Aditya

Might be some discrepancy with the FADA charts.

FADA data is not very comprehensive, so it makes less sense.

MG Motor India May 2023 data reported to SIAM is as below.

• Hector : 2,800
• Comet : 730
• EZS : 667
• Astor : 592
• Gloster : 217

[ExtremePocca]

Originally Posted by theabstractmind

We often hear of how some manufacturer is not able to sell more in numbers due to x or y reasons. But one vehicle seems to defy those logic - XUV300. How is it able to consistently sell 4k+ units despite not having a big boot, dated interiors (in public view; I like it personally), supposedly not big on features, and drives on AMT? I haven't ever been in one so I can't say.

It surprised me as well! The car does have a cracker of an engine though and it's refinement and NVH is top notch.

[enginesoul]

I think the the low numbers of VAG are expected considering they are over priced for what they offer. New Verna makes more sense as Value car with additional features at lower cost. I have been trying to get my hands on either Slavia or Virtus and I was expecting huge discounts considering new Verna price but Salespersons in Bangalore seem to suggest they have huge backlog for Virtus GT and cannot offer any discounts which is surprising.

Lack of Diesel engine from VAG family also a big letdown. Considering Hyundai offers fantastic diesel engine for its Creta I cant understand why cant VAG bring back its 1.6 TDI as the taxation does not affect much with current norms in place for Tax.