Honda Car India Losing Significantly – 2015 Car Sales Analysis

Honda Car India losing significantly to main rivals as Amaze, Jazz, Brio and Mobilio have failed to emulate the success encountered in 2014

Let’s start with the good news! Honda City has been pulverising its competitors in the last two years following the introduction of i-DTEC diesel engine into the Indian market which serves its purpose of enticing more customers on the Jazz premium hatchback as well. The popular City mid-size sedan has been the mighty seller for the Japanese brand with over 6,000 units are averagely being sold every month.

For the car that seemingly had no matching-rival, Maruti Suzuki decided to plonk in Ciaz as the replacement to the unsuccessful SX-4 sedan in 2014. Since its arrival, Ciaz has taken away quite a good number of customers from the City bandwagon although it couldn’t surpass the sales numbers of the long-reigning Honda sedan whilst comprehensively getting the better of Verna, Rapid and Vento.

With City’s dominant sales, Maruti Suzuki would’ve observed that the fuel economy of over 23kmpl had been a main advantage and therefore replaced the existing diesel engine in Ciaz with a SHVS mild hybrid engine last September with mileage rated at an impressive 28.09kmpl. The diesel hybrid is more likely to cause an important turnaround in 2016 to cut down the deficit of nearly 30,000 units Ciaz had at the completion of last year over the benchmark City sedan.

Whilst Maruti Suzuki had seven cars in the top 15 yearly sales chart, Honda could only manage a couple with the Amaze sub-four sedan being the other. With the Amaze begins the bad news for Honda as the Swift Dzire’s key nemesis endured a roller-coaster of a ride in 2015. The December month saw Amaze dipping to a new low as Honda retailed only 2,933 units as opposed to Dzire which was miles ahead at 16,790 units. This implies to about 57% sales decrease for Amaze compared to the same month in 2014.

Honda Amaze Sales Performance (July-Dec 2015)

Honda registered its highest ever domestic sales with 1,79,816 units at an overall growth of 67% in 2014 which was in complete contrast to the year followed. The Japanese auto maker reaped the benefits of the two new launches – City and Mobilio in 2014 – but the latter MPV has had a dismal year 2015 to say the least. Its sales stood at only 5% in December 2015 of what it managed at the same time the previous year.

The advent of Maruti Suzuki Ertiga has become a hammer-blow for the Mobilio as only 193 units were sold in December to mark a downtrodden year of sailing in the lower three digit numbers whilst Renault Lodgy MPV ended up December with 741 units. This has apparently prompted Honda soon-to-be replacing Mobilio with the BR-V. Looking at the rest of Honda’s portfolio doesn’t provide any encouraging signs either.

Honda Mobilio Sales Performance (July-Dec 2015)

About only 65 examples of the potent SUV were retailed in December underlining a downcast future for another Honda product. The Brio small hatchback came into the domestic scenes with a lot of promises but slowly dwindled due to the value-for-money offerings from traditional competitors Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai in its segment. It faced a downward sales curve all year and booted the month of December by selling a mere 221 units.

Honda Brio Sales Performance (July-Dec 2015)

The new-generation Jazz announced the revival of the premium hatchback which was discontinued citing poor sales back in 2013. Whilst it has lived up to its potential initially by wrapping up 6,600 units in the first full-month of its launch in July 2015, Honda couldn’t manage to stay put the same hype in the following months as it became yet another product with declining sales. December saw Jazz quenched into a disappointment figure of 2,602 units.

New Honda Jazz Sales Performance (July-Dec 2015)

For a highly resourceful manufacturer like Honda, the performance of its current model range except City has proved to be mediocre and its strategies to get back in the hunt is left for anybody’s guessing as of for now.

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