Tata’s first car to have been launched after a thorough brand make-over, the Zest is now Tata’s best selling car. Launched back in August 2014, at a starting price much lower than rivals, Zest sales have crossed 20,000 units till now. But is this number enough to make an impact on buyers in the Indian auto industry? The answer is no.
When you compare sales of Tata’s best selling car, Zest with the likes of Maruti DZire, Honda Amaze and Hyundai Xcent, which are the top 3 best selling cars in the segment, sales of Tata Zest are a little over 19,000 units, that of Maruti DZire stand at over 1 lakh units, that of Honda Amaze and Hyundai Xcent are more than 26,000 units.
Still selling more numbers than the Tata Nano, the company pins hopes on increased sales over the next few months. In the mean time, intense competition continued in the premium hatchback segment. Tata Zest saw sales of 3,835 units in November, 3,056 units in December and 2,757 units in January 2015 taking total sales to 9,648 units in the past three months of launch. However, total sales of Swift DZire totalled 50,000 units, while sales of Hyundai Xcent totalled 11,213 units and sales of Honda Amaze stood at 15,190 units in the same three months.
Competition to the Tata Zest is not only from Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and Honda but from other premium hatchbacks in a similar price range (Hyundai i20 for eg). Despite competition and the fact that Zest is the newest compact sedan in the segment, the model has done well.
Tata Motors’ second car, Bolt is also doing pretty well for the company. Up next this year is the launch of two new cars – currently codenamed Kite siblings. These will be placed a segment below the Bolt and Zest, and is aimed at the taxi fleet buyers and entry level car buyers. They will also launch a new Nano variant, along with facelift of Safari and Aria later this year.
