The Czech auto maker, Skoda has bid farewell to its iconic sedan Laura. It was conjectured since a long time that the company will be discontinuing the car any day now and finally it has been removed from the company's official website. Skoda Laura was considered as an elite class sedan and it had witnessed moderate sales in the Indian auto market. The news does come as heartbreaking but company claims that this was the only beneficial step to inflate its presence in the domestic market.
Prior to the launch of new generation Octavia, Laura was the sole premium segment sedan by Skoda India. With the advent of former car, the latter saw a decline in its acknowledgement. Skoda Laura was placed in the bracket of Rs. 14.5 lakh – Rs. 19.6 lakh, facing direct competition from Volkswagen Jetta and Toyota Corolla Altis. It marked its inception in India in 2005 and was considered to be a second generation model of Skoda Octavia. The car flaunted a similar design as its predecessor but was technically more enhanced. With the launch of the third generation Octavia in mid-2013, the company's focus drifted from Laura completely.
The duo was lying in the same price range and it was hindering Skoda to publicise its new creation. Experts believe that it was a highly perplexed situation as the company could not even reduce the cost of Laura, which will somehow put the car against its top-selling Rapid. Eventually the auto maker had to initially discontinue some variants of the car post the launch of new Octavia and then stop the production of its diesel variant. Interestingly, some dealerships are still keeping the stock of Skoda Laura TDI and are even offering lucrative schemes to tempt domestic buyers.
Skoda as a brand has not been able to accomplish much due to the lack of its showrooms across India. The advent of overseas brands like Volkswagen has also hampered the market presence of Skoda in India. In its Indian product portfolio, only Rapid and the earlier generation models of Octavia have been deemed with much success. The likes of Fabia and Superb have usually faced immense rivalries by other brands. In an already down market scenario of auto industry, the company has not been able to turn much heads with its new launches. Much is expected from the newly arrived third generation Skoda Octavia and experts are of a view that the car is capable to fill the void created by the termination of Laura.
India has recently perceived the immobilisation of Honda Accord. The model has seen a dip in its sales and the only sensible outcome decided by the auto company was to put a halt in its production. However, Honda has hinted on bringing back its prudent sedan in a diesel avatar next year but nothing has been divulged by Skoda for its sedans. In such circumstances, it will be interesting to see which company leads the premium sedan segment in the coming time.
