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The privilege of being second best...

They may have the country's largest selling car, but they're no longer the country's second largest-selling carmaker. Not for the 6 months from April to December last anyway.

PS: Post title unabashedly 'inspired'. =)

This rise needn't get you down...

OK, so we all expected the price-ups. It's now the turn of the Santro Xing (XE) and the Accent to cost more (again?). Each of them will now be dearer by Rs. 8000. But experts insist that this is something that neither the car-makers or the customer need worry about. Thanks to some borrower-friendly finance schemes and the inevitable freebies that continue to get thrown in, the hiked up prices are not likely to affect either the automaker's volumes or the customer's EMI. Manufacturers also insist that the rise in prices are due mainly to the addition of new features: what may have once been an add-on is now being included as a standard part of that car.

Of all things new...

In terms of new product launches in the Indian automotive industry, the year that just went by and the year that's on its way in.

Indian Top 10

Of the 10 top-selling cars in India in 2004:

• 6 of them were small cars
• the remaining 4 were 2 mid-sizers and 2 SUVs
• 4 of the top 6 six small cars were Maruti brands
• the top 6 cars accounted for more than half of the 1 million cars sold during the year
• the 3 bestselling cars - the M800, the Alto and the Santro all sold over 100000 units each
• the M800, the Alto and the Honda City led the numbers in each of their respective segments

Hand-me-downs on way up

Inspite of how easy it's been to afford and acquire a new car over the past few months, the Indian pre-owned car market seems to making a comeback of sorts, with the mid-sized sedan segment seeing most of the action in recent times. And the outlook for the months to come is even rosier, with the organised car market that currently comprises players like Maruti (True Value) and Ford (Assured) being looked at as the key drivers of growth.

Number One and a Million

India vrooms into the lead and becomes the fastest growing market for passenger vehicles for 2004 clocking 25% growth. Over 1 million cars sold in 2004 helped pipped China to the post, though in terms of absolute numbers sold we are still some way behind the Chinese, who currently push out about 4 million cars every year.

20-year high

December 2004 will go down as a rather unusual month in the annals of Indian autodom. Usually a lacklustre month for car sales, with buyers choosing to defer their purchase to the next month, the month just gone by did show early signs of bucking the trend.

And now, get this: Maruti clocked their best December sales in over 2 decades last month, ending up just short of 44000 units.

Update: Hyundai too pretty much jingled all the way to the bank in December.

Wrapping this up...

And to close things out for the year, both for the Indian car industry and this blog*, the first in a series of reports on the Indian Auto Sector in 2004.

It's been a 'million in a one' year, thanks to loads of new launches, the introduction of new segments, some pretty unbelievable festive offers, pitched battles in the compact segment, a new No.1 Indian car and lest I forget, my graduating to four wheels. =) All in all, a real bang-up job of a year!

* Updates over the next few days will be few and far between - if at all - as I'm headed home for the holidays. Expect to be back on the 3rd of January. In the meantime, a very Merry Christmas and an even better New Year to you all. And yeah, drive with your seatbelts on, won't you?

Keeping it fresh

There's nothing like a new product or variant launch to keep you in the consumer's mindspace. Atleast that's what seems to have worked for Ford, Honda, Tata, Maruti and Hyundai (just barely) this year, as new launches, VFM pricing and good fuel efficiency pushed their sales graphs in the right direction.

The Silver Lining

Metallic colours, and silver especially, have been gaining popularity in the Indian car industry over the past few months - a far cry from a few years ago when the larger percentage of cars that were seen on the roads were white. And supposedly, for all the right reasons.

And if you thought that the carmakers just picked a half dozen paint shades, slapped 3 coats of it on their cars and rolled them out of the factory for the buyer to pick from, think again. There's a detailed, scientific process - and an entire industry behind it - that's looking into what the colour of your car needs to be.