Indian car sales for November 2015: Winners and Losers

Welcome to the post festive season report. We have some interesting numbers; majority of the carmakers have done well and most of those who haven’t, didn’t do too badly either. Not surprisingly the top two have remained the same, but the reasons this time around are largely different. Also force majeure tops the list on the other side, with extensive damage in South India. Read on for more details on this month’s list.

Winners

Maruti Suzuki sold over 9,000 units of the Baleno! Doesn’t sound like a big success story, when the Swift, Dzire and others in the lineup have been doing more for years. But, while all those models are available through the hundreds of regular Maruti dealerships, the premium hatchback was sold through the Nexa initiative with just 80 touch points in the country. The success of the Baleno should encourage more dealers to open the Nexa outlet and give some breather to the existing ones which weren’t doing well with the S-Cross as the only product.

Hyundai planned the whole festive season pretty well. There were discounts and offers on products that needed a push and it seems to have worked well from the Korean brand. The Grand i10 for the first time was the fourth highest sold car in the month – these are generally taken by Alto, Wagon R, Swift and Dzire, but excessive push in October meant, the wholesales of MSI for November were down and Swift slipped to fifth position. Even the Eon did pretty well, while the Elite i20 sales continued to be over 10,000 units despite the increased competition.

Renault registered record sales in November. The French manufacturer dispatched 7,850 units last month; of course majority of those were the Kwid, but even the Lodgy sales also improved a little bit compared to the last three months. There is still a long way to go for the Kwid, but the company needs to be more consistent with the deliveries (which might be a problem in December, after the Chennai rains).

Losers

Chennai floods certainly deserve a place in our list. Of course the sales went down, but that is least of the problems. Hundreds of cars standing in the showrooms, service centres, streets and everywhere else were damaged. Factories were shut down for multiple days, production has taken a hit and even the ancillaries in the surrounding areas have suffered major losses. All of this is going to affect production this month, which means cars from Chennai-based manufacturers – Hyundai, Ford, Renault, Nissan, BMW and others with a waiting period will be delayed further. 

Toyota is yet to make any official announcements about the launch of the next generation Innova in India, but the sales of the current model have already started dipping. Less than 4,000 units of the MUV were sold last month, which is significantly lower than the usual numbers. The numbers will certainly pick up next year after the launch of the new model, but now it is going to be an uphill task for the company to continue selling the current Innova.

Volkswagen Group has issued a recall for 3,23,000 cars over the EA189 diesel engine emissions issue. It is a huge setback with the related costs and penalties going into millions, also it has affected the immediate sale of VW brand. The numbers last month were substantially lower than before and it might go up only in January.  Volkswagen is putting efforts in making up for the dent, the new Beetle will be launched soon, followed by unveiling of the sub-four metre sedan at the 2016 Auto Expo.