December 2012 Sales figures have been out by all the car manufacturers. The figures were a day late since Maruti Suzuki had their regular maintenance shutdown during the last week of December 2012. Nevertheless, they posted a growth compared to previous year and gave the Indian Automobile Industry the much needed relief.
During the previous months, we could see there has been slow movement of Petrol models out of the showroom mainly due to the increasing petrol prices and diesel was perceived to be a cheaper option. However, we could see the Sales of even Diesel models slowing down during December 2012 and this was the first month where the market witnessed huge discounts being dolled out even on Diesel models since the car makers had started feeling the heat that even diesel models were not moving out of showrooms as expected. Despite of huge discounts, we registered an overall de-growth of apprx. 3% during the month as compared to same month last year. However, to have a sigh of relief, the PV market registered close to 9% growth during the whole year 2012 as compared to year 2011. Below appended are some of the take aways from the Sales figures of December 2012.
1. Chevrolet India registered a de-growth mainly on account of Low sales of Beat Diesel. Chevrolet Sail U-VA is not able to make a huge impact in sales mainly due to its conservative looks. The car maker is scheduled for a Sail sedan and Enjoy MPV launch during Q1 2013. Chevrolet's Cruze might also get a minor facelift soon.
2. Fiat's stable continued to decline in sales. Fiat has now decided to make separate showrooms from Fiat's cars by March 2013 and thereby will focus on its models.
3. Ford marked a de-growth in December 2012 as its lifeline model - Figo continued to show less sales even after a facelift. However, Ford India would not be very much worried as they know what an Impact its upcoming Compact SUV - EcoSport will make to the market.
4. No words for Mitsubishi - 4 of its models post either No Sales or a single model sold. Ambassador - which sells apprx. 200 units a month is scheduled for End of Production (EOP) sometime early next year.
5. Honda continued to sell decent numbers despite of No Diesel models. They must be desperately waiting for their 1.5L Diesel engine which would be firstly powered in Brio Amaze sedan speculated to be launched in India during April 2013. Already launched in Thailand.
6. Hyundai too registered a drop this time - Its flagship models i20 and Verna recorded low sales during the month.
7. Maruti Suzuki posted higher numbers than expected despite of its one week shutdown and Swift sales are back on track with 17,000+ numbers during the month with another 13,000+ from Dzire. Alto sales rocketed to 26,000+ numbers. Ertiga however was down to 5,000+ numbers whereas the big drop was seen for WagonR, just 4300+ numbers, may be the company would be waiting for new facelifted model scheduled to be launched soon.
8. Tata lost again to Mahindra with December being the worst month - close to 50% drop in Passenger vehicle sales. Indica, Vista, Indigo, Manza, Nano combinedly did just managed to cross 14000+ sales. Infact, Nano was at its lowest sales of 2200+ numbers. Safari + Storme continued to be strong with 1300+
9. Mahindra & Mahindra came out strong and finally emerged as a winner of 2012 with the highest growth, close to 30% . The gap between Tata and Mahindra has now been very close and Mahindra is just close to passing Tata Motors. Infact, Tata did so bad, that even Toyota now seems to be close to Tata Motors.
10. Nissan, Skoda, VW & Toyota did fairly decent numbers with neither much impact on either of sides. Renault too felt the pinch of slowdown this time as the numbers plummeted to 4400+ this month.
We hope that the upcoming year with Q1 of 2013 brings some relief to the Industry and makes the financial year 2012-13 look decent in numbers. For a more detailed review of Year 2012, click here
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