With festive season knocking the door of Indian automobile market, car companies are putting in their best foot forward to lure domestic customers. As a normal market tendency, companies hope that their new car models which have been rolled out recently would see even bigger in-comings of customers and car enthusiasts. This hope is backed by the fact that, currently, there is huge demand for new car models of Ford, Honda, Hyundai and Maruti Suzuki. Notably, the market, so far, has not been at all conducive for car companies as the quest to sustain business and profitability continues. Strong reluctance in domestic market was heightened by steep depreciation of Indian rupee. To further choke out the market, there have been just too many fuel price hikes over a small time-period.
Increase in interest rates on auto loans also proved to stagnant things for passenger car sales. But now, all this might end, as new car models are penetrating the market with higher response. Quite significantly, recent launches of car models like Ford EcoSport, Hyundai i10 Grand, Maruti Stingray and Honda Amaze are also already sold out for the next two to four months. This has brought some relief for various companies that conduct business in India.
The comments made by top bosses can be seen as a testimony of hoped boosted sales in this festive season. In fact, Rakesh Srivastava, Senior Vice President (Marketing & Sales) at Hyundai Motor India, reportedly said, “ We have got some overwhelming response for the Grand i10 though we are in the initial stages of the launch.” Hyundai Grand i10 has so far notched around 9,000 bookings. Interestingly, a whooping 92,000 inquiries were made in the first fortnight of its launch. He further stated that Grand i10 variants are already sold out for the next two months despite of unfavourable overall market conditions.
Ford EcoSport, compact SUV, seems to mark the biggest success of the season with over 50,000 bookings. Seeing this huge demand marred by comparatively less supply, the US car maker had to stop bookings of few variants for a limited time and also aim more production. A senior company executive of Maruti Suzuki, requesting anonymity, reportedly said, "Our newly launched Stingray is doing better than our expectations. We have seen the premium class of customer vying for this vehicle and the bookings on the product for the past one month have exceeded our sales targets."
Honda Amaze too is going strong in the Indian automobile market. As a matter of fact, to get certain variants of this Japanese car maker’s first diesel car, many customers might have to wait for up to three months. Joginder Singh, president and MD of Ford India, said that the company will increase the production of EcoSport in order to meet the rising demand and lessen the waiting time for its customers.
However, despite of such inspiring debuts, notably, the overall car market still shows a negative growth in terms of sales. The first five months of this current fiscal year saw 6 per cent less sales as against the corresponding period last year. Keeping a close eye on the market, Sugato Sen, Deputy Director General at Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), said, “We are considering a review of the auto market where we would try to give a more realistic projections to passenger cars and other segments.”
