The auto industry continues to face negative sales over the past 10 months, spilling into the onset of the festive season. Sales reports in August 2019 showed significant drop in volumes across all sectors from compact sedan, premium hatchback and hatchback segments.
Leading players in the compact sedan segment such as Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and Tata Motors reported 34.4 percent, 16.58 percent and 58 percent decline in sales.The sedan segment, which included the Maruti DZire, Honda Amaze, Hyundai Xcent, Tata Tigor and Zest, Ford Aspire and VW Ameo saw overall sales dipped 48 percent to 21,139 units in August 2019, as compared to 40,469 units sold in August 2018.
The Maruti Suzuki DZire continued its reign on this segment. It scored among the top sellers on this list with 13,274 units sold in the past month, 40 percent lower as compared to 21,990 units sold in the same month of the previous year. DZire sales have recently crossed the 19 lakh unit milestone in India, retaining its top position as the best selling sedan. The DZire leads the segment with a market share of 61 percent based on total cars sold during the period April-July 2019.
Honda Amaze was at No. 2 on the list, down 53 percent to 4,535 units in August 2019 as compared to 9,644 units sold in August 2018. The 2020 Honda Amaze is in the making with will come in with new features and a BS VI compliant engine lineup. Launch date could be in February 2020.
Hyundai Xcent sales also dipped 74 percent to 1,316 units in the past month as compared to 4,981 units sold in August 2018. The second gen Honda Xcent compact sedan has been sighted on test and could come in with a new name (like Xcent NIOS). It will be sold alongside the existing Xcent while the current generation Xcent could be directed towards fleet operators in a lower trim.
While Tata Motors is actively testing the Tigor facelift with a BS VI compliant engine, the current model has been seeing declining sales. In August 2019 sales of the Tigor dipped 49 percent to 833 units as compared to sales of 1,646 units in August 2018.
Sales of the Ford Aspire hovered around the 500 unit mark seeing not much change in sales in the past month as compared to sales in the same month of the previous year. Sales of the Volkswagen Ameo fell 49 percent in August 2019 to 366 units as compared to 721 units sold in the same month of the previous year.
Tata Zest sales declined by 70 percent. Sales of the Tata Zest in August 2018 which stood at 964 units dipped to 294 units in the past month. At the bottom of the list of compact sedans was the Mahindra Verito, sales of which stood at 110 units in Aug 2019 as against 21 units in Aug 2018.
Overall small sedans sold in Aug 2019 stood at 21,249 units as against 40,614 units in Aug 2018. This is a decline of 47%. On MoM report, sales for July 2019 stood at 22,536 units. Again Aug 2019 reports decline – of 5.71%. All cars have posted decline in YoY sales report, but three cars have shown growth in MoM report. These are Maruti Dzire, Ford Aspire and Mahindra Verito.
