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Skoda to pull the plug on poor selling Fabia hatch

17th May 2013, 11:57 by Atul Chandra

Skoda will withdraw its slow selling Fabia hatchback from the market, reports autocarindia.com.

The Fabia will remain in the market till the existing stock is sold out.

The end of the Fabia will mean that Skoda will not have an offering in the hatchback segment. Its India plans for the next generation Fabia (codenamed SK 260) are unclear as of now.

Reasons for withdrawing the Fabia from the market, as mentioned in the report:

Skoda has incurred huge losses on the Fabia (losing up to Rs 1.5 Lakh per car)
Repeated price cuts and discounts have failed to generate any increase in sales.
Margins reduced as a result of 40 % reduction in its price compared to 2008 launch.
High level of foreign content in the Fabia makes it expensive to produce.

In the 6 month period from November last year to April of this year, Skoda could move only a meager 1038 units of the Fabia. In comparison, Volkswagen sold 19193 units of the Polo in the same time period.

Skoda slashed prices of the Fabia in October 2010, which helped sales average around 1100 units a month for a while. Skoda also committed a pricing blunder by launching the overpriced Fabia Scout variant in April 2012. By March 2012, sales had slumped to 770 units for the Fabia.

The withdrawal of the Fabia could also pose problems for a Skoda dealer in Gujarat who had offered customers who purchased a Skoda Rapid, a Fabia free of cost, 5 years down the line. Click here to read more about that.

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