Indian car sales for May 2016: Winners and Losers

May wasn’t as great as the past couple of months in terms of overall sales, but compared to 2015, still substantially ahead. It shows how the overall market has grown in the past few months, that despite a relatively dull month, the industry is showing a year-on-year growth. The numbers this month have few interesting stories to tell and here are picks for winners and losers of May 2016.

Winners

The Toyota Innova Crysta was obviously going to be part of this list. First month the next-gen Innova sales are over 7,000 units – and this car is actually more expensive than the previous model. Toyota is expected to sell everything that they produce at the facility in a month and that means the numbers should stabilise in the next couple of months.

The Baleno sales were once again over 10,000 units last month. The hatchback has been doing well despite limited penetration through Nexa showrooms. The hatchback has a waiting period of close to three months and the sales numbers should further go up in the next few months, once the production is realigned to manage exports and domestic requirements.

Losers

Renault had stopped production of the Kwid for a few days in May to adjust the assembly line for increasing the production. It meant an immediate drop in sales of the Kwid last month, since the company is selling everything produced at the facility with a waiting list beyond four months. 

The Eon sales for the first time are below the 4,000 mark. The entry-level hatchback’s numbers for May stand at 3,634 units; these are seriously low. Next  couple of months should give us an idea if the Eon is losing out to the growing competition  from the Alto 800 facelift and Renault Kwid or just a one-off case related to operations.

Mahindra Bolero was the biggest surprise of the month. It has for the longest time been the highest selling car in the Mahindra line up, but that is not the case at the moment. Mahindra sold more KUV100s in May and that is because the sale of the Bolero has dropped to 4,419 units. There can be multiple reasons for this – the Vitara Brezza has eaten into the rural market where the Bolero has a strong hold or Mahindra is facing some production issues or even a possibility that the production was put on hold to introduce an updated car.