A slump in the sales of petrol cars

There was an 18% decline in the sales of Etios to 4,095 cars due to drastic slowdown in the sales of petrol cars in July. This is a time where people are not buying cars and the sales graph of compact sedans in July sheds further light that diesel cars are gaining more popularity than petrol cars.

This year Tata Manza and Tata Indigo are the new leaders in sales for the first time. Around 4,877 of these cars were sold in July making them the best selling cars among sedans in the entry level.

Considering a dull month in the overall sales in July another car to have hit the high note is Mahindra’s Verito. Its sales rose to 8% more by selling 1630 units.

Factors which have helped the growth and sales of these cars is they come in diesel variants too and the decline in the production of Maruti Suzuki’s Swift Dzire which continued to drop for a second month now, the sales of which was less than 2500 in June to around 3021 cars in July.

This is a time where car manufacturers and working on strategies to improve things in the market with hike in fuel costs and interest rates. The current situation in the market is impeding the growth in the industry where people are postponing their decision for buying cars.

The current situation provides an opportunity to increase the productions of diesel cars thus necessitating the launch of Etios, diesel variant, by Toyota in the coming weeks. Buyers are deferring their decision to book Etios as they are waiting for the diesel variant to be launched.

Another strategy employed by car manufacturers to up their sales is by decreasing the length of the car slightly thus taking advantage of lower taxes and hence reducing the prices.

The Tata Vista and Tata Manza Compact (sedans) are likely to be launched in the ensuing two months. Length wise, these cars would be less than 4 meters thus qualifying for the lower taxes criteria.

Other car manufactures like Maruti Suzuki and Mahindra are also employing this idea of decreasing their car lengths. Maruti would be doing that to its Swift Dzire and Mahindra would cut off the boot of its Verito in hopes of benefiting from excise norms for small cars and lower the prices.

Car manufacturers are aware of the fact that compact sedans sector is quite price sensitive and so is the small cars sector. So, there are better deals on the way for car buyers in the coming months.

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