Indian car sales for April 2016: Winners and Losers

When both Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai do well in a month, there is no doubt that the overall numbers for the industry are going to be positive. The sales last month were 11.5 per cent more than the total sales in the first month of the last fiscal year. And growth has been consistent in the last few months, despite the diesel ban in Delhi, which is a significantly big market.

Winners

Maruti’s market share is once again close to 50 per cent and that is something, as its closest rival Hyundai is also doing very well. The newly launched Vitara Brezza contributed significantly, adding over 7,800 to the total numbers. The sales of rest of the models are actually lower compared to March, but since the overall industry numbers are even lower, the market share of Maruti has gone up.

Hyundai sold over 10,000 units of the Elite i20 and more than 8,000 Cretas. This added together with consistent sales for rest of the range, Hyundai is comfortably the second largest car brand in the country with total sales of 41,201 units and market share close to 18 per cent.

Ford sold 560 units of the Endeavour last month – for the first time overtaking the sales numbers of the Toyota Fortuner. The full-sized SUV commands a waiting period of around four months and it would be safe to call it the first successful product for Ford India in a while.

Losers

The Mahindra NuvoSport, the facelifted version of the Quanto, was launched last month with the hopes of reviving sales. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened – in the first month, the sales were around 1500 units and in April they have plummeted to 553 units. The TUV300 has already got the engine upgrade from this and will probably be the only option from Mahindra in this segment soon.

Tata Motors is still struggling to get the sales up despite the push under HorizoNext philosophy. The company sold only 290 units of the Bolt, which is lower than even the Vista, which it is based on. Hopefully the new models like the Tiago and the soon to be launched Hexa will perform better.

The Honda Jazz is the third car in this list for April. The hatchback isn’t doing as well as its competitors the Hyundai Elite i20 and the Maruti Baleno, but 869 units in a month – is low by any standard. The Japanese carmaker does keep alternating production and which means numbers might go up significantly xagain next month.