Earlier this year in March, a report from Times of India had claimed that Honda Car India would discontinue the Mobilio MPV. But the claim was rubbished by the company.
Now, a new report claims that not a single unit of Honda Mobilio has been produced by the company in the last 10 months! When we met Mr Jnaneswar Sen, Sr. VP – Marketing & Sales, Honda Cars India Ltd; on the sidelines of the new Brio facelift media drive, we managed to ask a few questions on the same.
Mr Sen agreed that they have not manufactured Mobilio since the last 10 months. The reason, existing stock. Honda had expected the Mobilio to do well in the Indian car market. It was even doing well, beating the Ertiga in sales during the early months. This gave HCIL to start producing more Mobilio units, in order to reduce waiting period.
But, the launch of new SUVs in the same price range resulted in decline in demand of Honda Mobilio. The condition is such that from peak of selling about 5,000 units of Mobilio a month, the company is now selling about 200 units of the same per month these days. Obviously, the company would want to clear the existing stock of Mobilio before they start producing new one’s.
So how is Honda taking care of those Mobilio’s which are lying at their stock yard for months now. Mr Sen says, they have a world-class standard to take care of the cars which are in their stockyard. Every car in their posession, gets inspected / cleaned every 15 days, thus keeping it fresh for respective owners.
So when does Honda Car India plan to restart the production of Mobilio? Mr Sen did not give a clear answer. But he did say that they have plans to start production soon. When asked, are there any plans to discontinue Mobilio, Mr Sen said no. The company has no plans to discontinue Mobilio.
Honda Mobilio Special Edition and RS – 2016 GIIAS
