Mumbai: Auto major Mahindra & Mahindra is now firming up plans to enter the domestic motorcycle market by the end of this year, a top company official said. The company is designing the motorcycle at its Italy-based Engines Engineering, which was acquired by the Mahindra group in 2008.
Mumbai: General Motors India has launched the CNG version of Chevrolet Aveo mid-size sedan. It is a bi-fuel vehicle with a full-size petrol tank that is one of the most environmentally-friendly cars available in India. Aveo CNG has a range of 180-200 km on a full tank of CNG and is BS-IV compliant.”
chevrolet-aveo
The Hindu (Web & Print Edition)
New Delhi: Maruti Suzuki is gearing up to launch an expensive variant of its largest-selling car, Alto, next month.
Maruti Suzuki Alto
The new avatar will sport a 1000cc, K-series engine, which is expected to be more powerful and fuel efficient. The existing Alto comes with a 800cc engine.
The 1 litre version is expected to be come at a “significant” price premium to the existing car. At present, the Alto’s certified mileage is 19.7 kmpl, but the new car is expected to give over 20 kmpl.
The Tata Nano is the most fuel-efficient car in India at present, with a mileage of 23.6 kmpl. But the Nano is also much lighter than the Alto. How much better fuel efficiency is offered in the new Alto remains to be seen.
In Mumbai, the Alto Standard comes for about Rs 2.43 lakh whereas the top end variant costs about Rs 2.75 lakh (ex-showroom Mumbai). In all probability, the new Alto’s top variant would cross the Rs 3-lakh mark.
When contacted, a Maruti Suzuki spokesperson declined to comment for this story.
Industry watchers are keen to see how the sales of the new Alto and the existing Alto – which is not being phased out as of now — will together impact sales of the A-Star. The Maruti A-Star comes between Rs 3.7-3.96 (ex-showroom Mumbai) and was initially seen as eating into Alto’s market share.
Some industry veterans expect brand Alto sales to jump by about 50% after the new variant is introduced. In May this year, Maruti sold 25,000 Alto cars and sales have averaged 20,000 units for several years now.
Industry sources say that Maruti is also simultaneously developing a stripped down Alto, trying to bring it closer to the price levels of the M800. The company is seeking to retain its A1 market share, which has suffered after the M800 was withdrawn from 13 top cities.
The company has already been working with vendors on the ‘one gram, one component’ principle -the weight of each component used in making a car is being reduced by a gram. This, coupled with other cost saving techniques, could well bring down the price of this ‘cost down’ Alto rather close to the base version of the M800 or even within striking distance of the Nano.
http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report_maruti-cranks-up-best-seller-alto_1406786
New Delhi: German carmaker Volkswagen on Tuesday said that it is open to jointly developing products with Maruti Suzuki India, as part of its efforts to achieve synergy with Suzuki Motor Corp at the global level.
The company, which picked up 19.9 per cent stake in the Suzuki Motor Corp (SMC) for USD 2.5 billion last year, said that independent projects currently being pursued by the two firms in Germany and Japan are being evaluated for market suitability.
“There will (be) some projects which will hit the Indian market. Let’s wait and see,” Volkswagen (VW) management board member Christian Klingler told PTI.
Asked if there is a possibility of VW jointly developing products with Maruti Suzuki India (MSI), he said: “Of course, there is a possibility of developing products together, (but) I cannot confirm it.”
“We are in the face of really exciting opportunities and we really want to come out when the projects have a certain degree of realisation. So let us give it some time,” he added
Klingler said that the Indian market may play an important role in VW’s global partnership with Suzuki. “The partnership with Suzuki is not an Indian partnership. It is a global partnership and, of course, an important part could be played (by) the Indian market,” he stated.
He said that the partnership between VW and Suzuki is all about leveraging on each other’s strengths. “Suzuki is very strong in the Asian market, including India and Japan. They have knowledge in the small car segment, which is pretty unique. They make small cars and make money. Lot of manufacturers make small cars, but they don’t make money,” Klingler said.
“Suzuki (also) has lot of interest on the technologies that we have,” the VW board member added.
He said there would be a lot of synergy between the firms in many areas, such as utilising MSI’s supplier base. “There are lot of discussions going on about synergies and one synergy could be at the suppliers’ level as well,” Klingler added.
Officials of MSI and VW India were understood to have met in May to explore synergies in production and vehicle design.
Klingler said that VW is also looking at increasing sourcing of components from India for its global operations.
A new entrant in India, VW is yet to gain firm ground. It had started production from its Chakan plant this year, at an investment of Rs 3,500 crore. The plant has an annual capacity of 1,10,000 cars.
In contrast, MSI is the largest brand in the country, accounting for over 55 per cent of its 15-lakh unit car market.
The Japanese company is also ramping up its R&D division by investing around Rs 1,500 crore in an upcoming centre at Rohtak, to be used for developing cars for India as well as the ASEAN region. This would be SMC’s largest R&D centre outside Japan.
New Delhi: In a departure from the norm of keeping new cars under wraps till their official launch, manufacturers now not only showcase upcoming cars aggressively but also accept bookings in advance.
Toytoa Etios
Toyota Etios, Ford Figo, Chevrolet Beat, Nissan Micra and Skoda Yeti have all created a buzz among consumers months ahead of their official launch. Cars like Maruti Swift, Chevrolet’s Cruze and Beat, Ford Figo and Honda Jazz have even garnered sizeable pre-launch bookings.
“We have done pre-launch bookings in only two cars — Cruze and Beat — so far but the response has been overwhelming,” said P Balendran, vice-president, General Motors India.
Mostly, it is the newer players like Toyota, Skoda, Ford, Honda and Nissan, who have chosen this route of creating awareness. Heavyweights like Maruti, Hyundai and Tata continue to follow the traditional way of keeping a new car under wraps till the launch.
Recently, Nissan embarked on a similar activity for its upcoming maiden small car Micra, and despite having only 11 operational dealerships, it has managed to garner over 1,500 bookings. The company also kickstarted its media campaign over a month prior to its launch.
“We are confident now that this booking trend will continue to improve as we move closer to the start of sales in middle of July,” said Kiminobu Tokuyama, managing director and CEO, Nissan Motor India.
Skoda, which will launch a compact SUV, Yeti, and Toyota, which will launch its small car Etios later this year are also taking the products on a whirlwind tour of the country.
“Showcasing a car before it is officially launched and sharing product details with customers is a very healthy trend,” said Thomas Kuehl, board member (sales and marketing), Skoda India.
Mumbai: The scooter segment, which was almost neck and neck with motorcycles in the last fiscal, has doubled its growth rate in the first two months of the current fiscal.
Last fiscal scooters grew 26% while motorcycle sales jumped 27%. While scooters are currently growing at 49%, the growth rate for motorcycles is about 21%, though it is too early to say if this sort of growth is sustainable.
Pramod Kumar and Mitakshi Asher, analysts, J M Financial, in anote on June 15, said scooters (nearly15% of total two-wheelers) are expected to outperform motorcycles (80% of total two-wheelers) by 2% for the next few years on account of higher number of female users, rising congestion in cities, multiple purpose usage and unisex appeal.
Kumar said, “During the 2009 economic meltdown customers postponed their purchase and the pent-up demand showed up in early 2010. This led to the growth in fiscal 2010 which is spilling over in fiscal 2011 as well.”
While this growth comes on a low base effect of last year, Atul Gupta, vice-president (sales and marketing), Suzuki Motorcycle India, said, “In the first two months we are seeing scooters growing faster than bikes and this due to couple of factors.”
Not only the popularity of scooters with the woman segment fuelling the growth, scooters are also penetrating into the younger age group and it not just the women and 35 plus age group phenomenon, he said.
“The most important group that is adding to the numbers is the 20-25 plus age group, a typically bike preferring segment. The other important factor is that scooters are now penetrating into the eastern market where it was virtually absent all these years,” Gupta said.
Despite the production shortage, which most of the two-wheeler manufacturers faced due to lack of component supply, the industry experts say that the scooter segment has grown from 10% in the first two months of previous fiscal to 20% in the corresponding period of this year.
Had there been no shortage the growth could have been 50%, Gupta said. The scooter segment is in a sweet spot as demand outstrips supply. Due to the introduction of Activa in 2001 by Honda Motorcycle and Scooters (HMSI), the segment, which was once declining, is growing rapidly now.
Naresh Rattan, vice-president (marketing and sales), HMSI, said, “Until the mid 90s, contribution from scooters was more than motorcycles and then it started to sharply decline as better bikes started flooding the market. But this trend has reversed with gearless scooters coming into the market, which also provide the same mileage and maintenance cost as that of a motorcycles.”
HMSI, which has a 55:45 split between scooters and motorcycles, believes that the scooter segment has earned a respectable position in the two-wheeler market and it will reach its full potential but will not replace the bike market. Rattan said, from the current share of nearly 15% of the total two wheeler market it will reach up to 20% soon.
TVS Motors, with its recently launched Wego, too, hopes to double its revenue from scooter sales in the current fiscal.
It has been reported earlier that the company is looking at the sales from the scoter segment to reach Rs 1,500-1,600 crore in the current fiscal, double that of Rs 800 crore in the last fiscal.
TVS is now eyeing sales of 480,000 units of scooters this fiscal against 300,000 units sold last year.
HS Goindi, president (marketing), TVS Motors, said currently scooters constitute 20% of our total sales and this number will be much higher next year.
http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report_scooters-growing-faster-than-motorcycles_1404504
New Delhi, July 1, 2010: Car market leader Maruti Suzuki India Limited sold a total of 88,091 vehicles in June 2010. This includes 15,279 units for export.
The company had sold a total of 75,109 vehicles in June 2009.
Maruti Suzuki’s volume in the domestic A3 segment grew by 32.5 per cent while in the A2 segment the sales grew by 11.4 per cent during the month as compared to sales in June 2009. The sales growth in the C segment was 43.9 per cent over June 2009
The company was closed for 6 days during June 2010 (as also in June 2009) for a planned maintenance shutdown of the facilities.
The sales figures for June 2010 are given below:
| Segment | Models | June | Till June | April’09 – March’10 | ||||
| 2010 | 2009 | % Change | 2010-11 | 2009-10 | % Change | |||
| A1 | M800 | 2090 | 2438 | -14.3% | 6906 | 7119 | -3.0% | 33028 |
| C | Omni, Versa, Eeco* | 9914 | 6890 | 43.9% | 33521 | 22233 | 50.8% | 101325 |
| A2 | Alto, Wagon-R, Estilo, Swift, Ritz* A-Star | 51418 | 46156 | 11.4% | 170513 | 146733 | 16.2% | 633190 |
| A3 | SX4, DZire | 8081 | 6099 | 32.5% | 28958 | 19947 | 45.2% | 99315 |
| Total Passenger Cars | 71503 | 61583 | 16.1% | 239898 | 196032 | 22.4% | 866858 | |
| MUV | Gypsy, Grand Vitara * | 1309 | 190 | 588.9% | 2989 | 1383 | 116.1% | 3932 |
| Domestic | 72812 | 61773 | 17.9% | 242887 | 197415 | 23.0% | 870790 | |
| Export | 15279 | 13336 | 14.6% | 40437 | 29314 | 37.9% | 147575 | |
| Total Sales | 88091 | 75109 | 17.3% | 283324 | 226729 | 25.0% | 1018365 | |
*Ritz was launched in May 2009, Grand Vitara was launched in Jul 2009, Eeco was launched in Jan 2010.
Issued by:
| Corporate Communications,
Maruti Suzuki India Limited, One Nelson Mandela Road, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi Ph: 91-11- 4607 5414 / 4678 1000 / 4678 1113 Website: www.marutisuzuki.com |
New Delhi: Demand for diesel cars that has been on the rise for the last a few years, may dip as government is increasing price of the fuel, bringing it closer to petrol.
Diesel Cars
Officials from top car companies said the ‘attractive’ price differential between petrol and diesel was the key reason behind the rising preference for diesel vehicles.
“Lowering of the pricing gap could blunt this advantage, pushing the deal favourably towards petrol-driven cars that are also around 10-15 % cheaper than diesel variants.”
“If the price of diesel moves up again and comes further closer to petrol, there would certainly be a shift in buying behaviour as people would prefer to opt more for petrol vehicles,” said Ankush Arora, vice-president (sales & marketing) at General Motors India. Arora said the shift could be ‘immediate’ in small cars where monthly fuel bills is an important factor in purchasing decisions.
The share of diesel variant in overall car sales has been moving up over the last a few years. According to industry estimates, diesel accounted for about 20-25% of sales till 2007 and now stands at about 30-35%.
Mayank Pareek, managing executive officer (marketing and sales) at Maruti Suzuki, agreed that lower price was behind rising share of diesel vehicles. “Certainly, the price differential is the prime mover for diesel. So there would be some impact if its price goes up further. However, the improved technology on diesel engines is also among factors pushing sales.”
For Maruti, the demand is skewed towards diesel at present where a model has both petrol and diesel variants. “It is like 55% or 60% for diesel in many of the models,” Pareek said, though refusing to give any forecast on how the increased prices could impact demand. “It is too early to comment.”
Arvind Saxena, marketing and sales director at Hyundai India, also said the ‘growing trend’ towards diesel cars would be impacted if the price of the fuel continues to go up.
While agreeing that lower cost was the major reason behind the surge in diesel, he also listed rising sophistication in engine technology behind their increasing preference.
Nigel Wark, executive director (marketing & sales) at Ford India, said there are customers who like the driving characteristics of diesel engines. “While there is no doubt that there can be some impact at the bottom-end of the market, there would not be any dramatic shift,” Wark added.
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New Delhi: Alto, WagonR and SX4 will be some of the top-selling Maruti Suzuki models to sport a CNG engine this year as India’s largest carmaker looks at alternate fuel technology to build a more environment-friendly fleet for the Indian market.
Aiming to retain its 50% market share, Maruti will launch new compressed natural gas (CNG)-fired versions of these vehicles that will be priced at a premium of around 15-20%. All these cars will come packed with a new technology that will be factory-fitted, unlike most other petrolpowered vehicles in the country at present which are retrofitted.
“It’s our answer to green technology that will also be most fuel-efficient auto fuel in India, blending the benefits of gasoline engine power at the cost of the CNG,” said IV Rao, managing executive officer (engineering) at Maruti Suzuki.
Maruti is using an in-house developed i-GPI (intelligent gas port injection) technology that will give the option of driving with either petrol or CNG as fuel. Mr Rao said it will be the only factory-fitted computer controlled gas distribution system to be integrated into the petrol engines using injectors to fire gas directly into engine eliminating any loss of power.
Carmakers at present use venturi type CNG technology in products such as Hyundai Accent, General Motors’ Spark or Toyota’s Innova that faces around 15% loss of power when these vehicles are driven on CNG. Maruti will import the injectors from US, which will make the products dearer but still less than the hybrid cars in the country. The ex-showroom price of Toyota’s Prius in Delhi is Rs 26.5 lakh. Maruti preferred to use CNG as a fuel for i-GPI as it is cheaper than electric and other forms of hybrid engines.
Analyst tracking the sector remain optimistic on the CNG fuel strategy adding volumes for Maruti. “Initiatives from the government in the form of better availability of alternative fuels and tax rebates on green technology would push up sales,” said Sumit Arora, associate director at Synovate Motoresearch.
“Copyright © 2010, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved”
New Delhi: Fears over Maruti Suzuki India losing its grip over the domestic passenger car market due to intense pressure from competition may be exaggerated, at least for now.
Despite a flurry of new launches across the hatchback segment – Honda Jazz, Tata Nano, Chevrolet Beat, Ford Figo and Volkswagen Polo since April 2009 – Maruti’s hatchback market share remains virtually unaffected.
The country’s largest car maker did see market share fall below the 50 per cent mark around April in the A2 segment though.
Seven out of 10 cars sold by Maruti fall in this segment and the decline around April this year was because of about 25 per cent fall in the sales of flagship model Alto due to new emission norms kicking in. But Maruti has gained back share now to settle at well over the 50 per cent mark.
Sachin Gupta of HSBC Securities and Capital Markets, in a recent note said Maruti has begun to regain market share whereas “market share loss has been higher for Tata Motors and Hyundai Motor India”.
But while Maruti has maintained its grip over the market, profitability has taken a beating. As per Batliwala and Karani, sustained competitive intensity is bringing about a “sustained downward shift in profitability. We believe that among listed names, Maruti is more vulnerable to commodity price increases…export profitability will also be lower due to the strengthening rupee and drop in exports to Europe”.
Meanwhile, now that new launches from competition have lessened, Maruti is lining up CNG launches and together with a bit more pricing power, things look good for the country’s largest car maker. Executive Officer (Marketing & Sales) Mayank Pareek says Maruti has been able to retain market share because it held fast to three core values: value-for-money, trust and reliability of the product and styling.
“We have always been able to provide the lowest cost of ownership in cars and now, even in the styling aspect we have matched competitors”.
According to HSBC’s analysis of Maruti WagonR, Chevy Beat and Ford Figo, the cost of spares needed for the Figo is about 25% higher and for Beat about 40% higher than the WagonR while both the cars score much lower than the WagonR in terms of residual value (resale).
Pareek said that aggressive competitive pricing of hatchbacks has not been able to shift Maruti’s focus from providing overall value-for-money. The company is yet to conclude negotiations with commodity vendors for raw material supplies this fiscal but it is possible that Maruti could go in for another round of price hikes if input costs continue to remain high. On supply constraints, Pareek said that the waiting period for the Dzire is down from six months earlier to three months; Swift Diesel is available after 8-12 weeks whereas the petrol variant comes within a month.
http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report_maruti-s-hatchback-share-hasn-t-been-dented-yet_1396489
