MG Motor sees no adverse impact of India-China tensions and plans to ramp up capacity to meet demand
MG Motor India, owned by SAIC of China, has been seeing outstanding success in India. The company sells the Hector, Hector Plus, Gloster and ZS EV in India. Total sales of MG in 2020 stood at about 28,000 units.
The MG Gloster, which competes with the Toyota Fortuner and Ford Endeavour has seen 3,500 bookings in less than 3 months since launch. In December 2020 alone the company received 5,000+ bookings for the Hector SUV and 200 for the MG ZS electric. ET Auto reports that MG Motor got a total of 80,000 orders in 2020 alone.
Thanks to the huge booking order and the launch of upcoming ZS petrol SUV in the Rs 8-9 lakh range, the company expects sales to grow by 70-80% percent in 2021. That means in 2021, MG aims to sell 51,000 – 55,000 cars in India alone. If achieved, that will be phenomenal growth YoY, especially in times of the pandemic and economic turmoil.
MG Hector Vs Competition
Sales of MG Hector that had stood at 15,930 in 2019 increased to 25,935 in 2020, a 62.81 percent increase. These figures, when compared to sales of its competitors Tata Harrier, Mahindra XUV500, Jeep Compass and the Hyundai Tucson, are significantly higher. Take a look at the table below.
Harrier sales dipped 7.59 percent in 2020 from 15,227 units sold in 2019 to 14,071 units in the past year. Likewise, XUV500 sales also dipped 58.93 percent to 7,053 units sold in 2020 and Jeep Compass and Hyundai Tucson sales fell 53.36 percent to 5,209 units and 38.45 percent to 597 unit sales respectively in the past year. Sales of all Hector rivals have declined YoY.
In terms of market share, in Calendar Year 2020, Hector had a market share of a little over 49%. In comparison, they had a market share of just 26.45% in CY 2019. In just 1 year, they have increased market share by 22.61%. Harrier MS increased by 1.34% while XUV500 and Compass registered huge MS decline of 15% and 8% respectively. Sales table shows that MG Hector has eaten into the sales of its rivals.
Capacity At Halol Plant To Be Boosted
In view of this outstanding demand and expectations of higher sales in the year ahead, MG Motor is planning to boost capacities at its Halol Plant. The facility, which had produced around 30k units in 2020 has the capacity to produce 80,000 units per annum. The factory timings will be extended and supply chain will be augmented to keep up with this production.
MG Motor India has stated that to date the company has invested Rs.3,000 crores in India and plans fresh investment to the tune of Rs.1,500 crores in the next financial year. Along with stepping up production, the company also plans to increase localization of products and an increase in dealerships from a current count of 220 dealers in 137 cities to 100 more by the end of 2021.
New MG Hector Facelift Launch in India
MG Motor India launched the Hector facelift and updated Hector Plus in India starting at INR 12.89 lakhs for the five seater. The 6 seater with captain seats and 7 seater are priced at INR 15.99 lakh and INR 13.34 lakhs respectively.
Both the new SUVs retain their engine lineup as seen on the older models with the 1.5 liter turbo petrol engine offering 143 hp power and the 2.0 liter diesel engine making 70 hp. The engines get mated to 6 speed manual and 6 speed dual clutch automatic gearbox options.
