Compact sedans have suddenly caught a lot of attention for primarily 2 reasons –
The best selling car in the segment (Dzire) is also India’s best selling car this year (Jan-July)! Maruti’s Dzire has out-beaten the next best Alto by quite a margin! Dzire sold 1,66,088 units between Jan’18-July’18 v/s 1,46,761 units of Alto within the same time.
Honda’s Amaze has emerged as the biggest launch of 2018! The Compact Sedan has worked wonders for the Japanese OEM and recorded >10k volumes just within 3 months of launch. Infact, Amaze is the first model in Honda Cars India’s history to cross 10k sales mark in a month. Amaze also contributed to ~51% of Honda’s overall sales in July’18!
Amaze has posed a real challenge to Dzire and has now bought Maruti on its toes. Maruti is now on a defensive mode and has already initiated a counter attack to avoid losing it’s sales to Amaze by:
Ensuring a steady supply and reduce the waiting period. Dzire had commanded a waiting period of 3-6 months since its launch. However, Maruti has planned production of extra batches of Dzire to allow immediate availability of the variants.
Aggressive promotions (TV/Print/Hoardings/Social Media) of Dzire across markets to enhance visibility amongst prospects.
Dzire has already initiated discounts to woo price-conscious buyers. Honda had surprised all by announcing a breakthrough price for Amaze – In some variants Amaze was almost Rs.35k cheaper than the counterpart Dzire (Amaze VX Diesel v/s Dzire Zdi+). Without Amaze, no one would have even thought about discounts on a Dzire!
Recent Dzire Paper Ad – Also see that discounts upto Rs.22,100 being offered!
In short, the race to be the most ‘Dzire’able car in the segment has got hotter and Maruti has now found a real competition in Amaze:
The C-segment Sedan segment has also seen a major upswing – Ciaz has fallen down to the bottom of the list! Yes, Maruti was rationalizing the stocks of the outgoing Ciaz and was making way for the Facelift model (slated to be launched on 20th Aug). In the process, City has gained the throne and ranked 1st in the segment. City was ahead of the next best selling car in the segment (Verna) by almost 350 units.
City tops the chart with 3,709 units! However, the model has degrown 24% vis-a-vis the same period last year.
The overall segment degrew 26% owing to the low volumes of the outgoing Ciaz. The numbers are surely bound to bounce back in August.
Yaris has been a big setback for Toyota. With a average of 2,500 units/mth planned initially; the model dropped to 1,400 volumes just within 4 months of its launch. The pricing and the perceived value package has worked against the model.
Rapid & Vento siblings are fighting hard to maintain its volumes.