No slowdown for some cars

Petrol cars like Jazz and diesel variants of Ritz, Swift Dzire and Manza see strong demand.

The recent downturn in car sales does not seem to have affected some variants, especially the diesel versions. The slowdown in sales, says Sundeep Bafna of Fort Point Automotive which sells Maruti Suzuki cars and Hero MotorCorp bikes, is mainly because customers are seeking models which are in short supply. The result: long waiting periods for several car models.

Diesel variants for several Maruti models such as Swift, Swift DZire, Ritz and SX4 are in high demand as the gap between the petrol and diesel prices has widened in recent times. Other mass produced models like the Chevrolet Beat diesel and the Tata Indigo Manza diesel too are enjoying a surge in demand.

Shashank Srivastava, chief general manager, Maruti Suzuki India, said, “We have close to 100,000 bookings for the Swift and 90 per cent of it is for diesel variants. While the petrol Swift is delivered to the consumer within a week, customers have to wait for more than three-four months to accept delivery of the diesel model.”

In spite of the base diesel version costing Rs 5.46 lakh (ex-showroom, Mumbai) – a lakh more than the petrol version – the demand has been consistent. The country’s largest car maker is making efforts to increase production of Swift further from the existing 17,000-18,000 units a month to bring down the waiting period.

But even some petrol cars are continuing to see a surge in demand. Jazz, a premium hatchback from Honda has good seven to eight months waiting period. If you want to own the car, wait till June next year, the company is telling customers. After the Indian subsidiary of Honda announced a price cut of Rs 1.6 lakh on the Jazz, now sold at Rs 5.5 lakh, consumers have been queuing up to buy the car.

Jnaneswar Sen, senior vice president, marketing and sales, Honda Siel Cars India (HSCI) said, “The sluggishness in the car market has not impacted the demand for Jazz and Brio. We had plans to push production to maximum capacity around November but because of the Thai floods we were forced to cut production.”

HSCI relies on its sister company in Thailand for parts. However, last month, Thailand experienced its worst floods in several decades hurting manufacturing plants of many car makers. Honda was the worst hit. “We are making arrangements to source components from China and Japan instead of waiting for Thailand to stand up again,” added Sen.

Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M), the only automotive company to have beaten the slowdown comprehensively with a growth of 21 per cent this year, is busy doubling production of its newly launched model XUV500.

The company was forced to halt bookings for the premium sports utility vehicle after demand from only five cities where it was opened, exceeded its expectations. This is the costliest passenger vehicle by the company priced at Rs 10.8 lakh. Rajesh Jejurikar, chief executive (automotive division), M&M said, “People bought SUVs at Rs 7 lakh and if they wanted to go for something better they had to shell out Rs 15-20 lakh for it. There was nothing in between. We undertook bookings for 9,500 units of the XUV500 and hope to clear the backlog by January.”

M&M, the market leader in the SUV segment, is pushing its component manufacturers to speed up parts supplies so that it can double the production of the model to 4,000 units per month. And it has also deferred bookings since October across the five centres of Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Bengaluru and Chennai.

Dealers of General Motors and Tata Motors also say that demand for the Beat and Indigo Manza diesel has shot up following increased preference for the diesel variants across many centres.

The rise in demand for the above mentioned models comes at a time when the entire passenger car industry slumped by 3.5 per cent during April-November selling 1.21 million units as against 1.26 million units in the same period last year.

While the general inflation and hike in fuel prices should have put brakes on demand for two-wheelers also, certain scooters and premium India-made bikes are commanding a waiting period as well as a premium.

Honda Activa, India's largest automatic scooter has a demand backlog of 200,000 units. Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI), India’s third largest two-wheeler maker, is trying to jack up capacity for the scooter to 100,000 units per month by March.

The company says that it has raised the capacity for Activa from the levels of 55,000 units per month to 80,000 units per month. Still the waiting period on the bike is around 3-4 months. Honda’s brand loyalty is the strongest for a foreign company in India.

Where Honda buyers are willing to wait for months and in some cases even pay a premium to speed up the delivery, buyers lining up to buy the latest Royal Enfield motorcycle are even willing to wait for a whopping 12 months to take the delivery of the Classic range. Venki Padmanabhan, CEO, Royal Enfield, said, “We are helpless as we have squeezed our production unit to the maximum. Matters will ease a lot when our new production unit gets rolling in 2013.”