Thursday, November 20th, 2008
After Toyota, Mahindra and Tata Motors , now Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. has decided to cut down its production in India. India’s largest car manufacturer launched its most awaited model, Maruti A-Star in India on Wednesday. However, it expects a decrease in the demand of its cars in the next few months.
“We made some re-adjustments in production. There is a demand slowdown,” said Mayank Pareek, the company’s executive officer in charge of marketing. However, he declined to elaborate on the ‘adjustments’. The company produced 757,092 cars, vans and utility vehicles in the year ended March 31.
The auto industry has been facing difficult times in India since past few months. Rising job insecurities, high interest rates and escalating raw material prices have led to a historic slump in the demand. In India, nearly 85 percent cars are bought on credit where auto loans play a major role.
[Via: cartradeindia]
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Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
Toyota has put the India launch of Prius , the world’s first mass-produced hybrid vehicle, on the back burner. Infrastructure issues, a steep duty structure and inability to launch at a competitive price are some of the reasons cited by company officials.
The recent move by Honda , Toyota’s arch rival, to slash the price of its Civic Hybrid by Rs 8.14 lakh could also have interfered with Toyota’s plans to launch Prius in India, sources said. Toyota was looking to launch the car in 2009 at Rs 20-22 lakh. Honda’s Civic hybrid currently costs Rs 13.36 lakh.
The hybrid cars, which use both petrol engine and electric motor, are fuel-efficient and have lower emission levels, making them environment-friendly. Toyota’s domestic arm, which does not have the required manufacturing infrastructure to roll out hybrid cars, is unsure of the initial volumes and feels that the Indian market is not yet ready for such cars.
[Via: economictimes]
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Saturday, November 15th, 2008
Ford Fusion shall be phased out soon from the Indian car market. The model has shown a decline in sales since past several months. The company plans to phase out the model owing to its poor sales performance. The model was launched in early 2004 but has received a very poor response from the Indian auto market.
“Every car launched is phased out over a certain period. Fusion is not doing well in a slowed down market. Hence, we will take a call at the right time,” said Michael Boneham, President, Ford India. He also added that the car will be phased out gradually and certainly not with immediate effect. “The model is selling, but the response is not as expected… But we do not have a fixed schedule by when that would happen,” he said.
He said that Ford plans to launch its small car by 2010 and will stick to its $500 million investments in India. “We would also roll out the proposed small car with both petrol and diesel variants in 2010,” he added. The company will double its assembly line capacity from 1 lakh unit to 2 lakh units and will also set up an engine manufacturing facility for 2.5 lakh units in Chennai.
[Via: cartradeindia]
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Tuesday, November 11th, 2008
Growth of China’s auto exports is likely to slow down to 20 percent this year, down from around 80 percent last year, according to an estimate from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
Chinese auto exports’ growth rate was about 35 percent in the January-September period this year, when Chinese carmakers exported a total of 557,736 vehicles. Since then, growth has slowed to around 20 percent. With the current liquidity crunch, Chinese consumers are curbing expenditure on buying new vehicles, and the country’s carmakers are getting hit hard because of that.
To offset the slump in domestic demand, some Chinese car/SUV/truck manufacturers are now looking at exploring new markets in Africa, Eastern Europe and various parts of Asia.
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Tuesday, November 11th, 2008
Hinduja Group flagship company, Ashok Leyland Ltd. plans to keep its factories closed for three days per week, in order to cut down production, to keep pace with the current slowdown in demand.
ALL factories - six units spread across Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Maharashtra - will continue to operate at 50% capacity till December this year, when the company will review the situation, and decide when it wants to resume full production again.
However, even though ALL will run its factories for only three days per week, there will be no worker layoffs. In fact, workers will not even lose their wages, though they will compensate the company by working on weekends and other holidays once full production resumes.
For October 2008, Ashok Leyland reported total domestic sales of 2,976 units, as against 6,280 units in the year-ago period. For the period April-October 2008, ALL’s total domestic sales stood at 35,302 units, as against 40,326 units during the same period last year.
[Via: indiaautomotive]
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Tuesday, November 11th, 2008
Tata Motors has announced that its commercial vehicle manufacturing plants in Lucknow and Pune will remains closed for six days each. This is being done to cut down on production, to match the current slowdown in demand. Tata employees at both the plants will be given paid leave for the shutdown period. Tata Motors had also, recently, shut down its HCV plant in Jamshedpur for three days.
[Via: indiaautomotive]
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Tuesday, November 4th, 2008
Car and two wheeler sales in India took a dip in the month of October. Although the companies had been eyeing the festive season to move their stocks and clear their inventories, but the ongoing economic scenario compelled the small car segment buyer away from the market. The auspicious day of “Dhanteras” marked sales of 15000 units across the country which was lesser than last year’s sales of 17000 units on the same day.
Maruti Suzuki and Tata Motors have already reported a drop in sales in the month of October 2008. These two car manufacturers have stated that the market is seriously hurt by the rising interest rates and the overall credit crunch in the market. Maruti reported sale of 64,490 units in October 2008 as against 69,415 units last year.
On the other hand, the major two-wheeler manufacturers, Hero Honda, Bajaj and TVS Motors have also reported a decline in their sales in the month of October 2008. On the brighter side, the exports figures have lent a serious support to the sales figures of especially Bajaj and TVS Motors.
[Via: cartradeindia]
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Monday, October 27th, 2008
India’s third-largest two-wheeler manufacturer, TVS Motor Company Ltd. is scaling down its investment plans in India, owing to weaker demand and tight availability of consumer finance.
TVS, which was earlier planning to invest about Rs 1 billion per annum on expansion, will now only invest about Rs 750 million per year for the next two years. ‘We have seen low growth and will only invest for new models and R&D projects now,’ said Venu Srinivasan, Chairman and Managing Director, TVS Motor. ‘There is no significant investment in capacity. Given the turbulent conditions, we would trim our investments,’ he added.
TVS Motor had recorded a 19 percent increase in total two-wheeler sales in September this year, but the company expects growth to slow down in the near future, primarily due to lack of availability of finance. ‘We don’t expect improvements till the end of 2009, as the global economy is slowing down. The crisis in the west is affecting us here, nobody is really willing to lend,’ said Srinivasan.
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Friday, October 17th, 2008
Bajaj Auto, the country’s second largest two-wheeler manufacturer, may cut production as it sees a slowdown in motorcycle sales after the current festival season.
“We are preparing for a slowdown. This is the festive season, so demand is high but product rationalisation may happen from mid-November,” Sanjiv Bajaj, executive director, told reporters at a conference. “Production cut is not a bad word for us.”
Bajaj also said the company was extending credit directly to dealers and making faster payments to suppliers amid tight liquidity in the financial system. The statement comes amid uneasy financial conditions in the market which has dented consumer sentiment.
Stringent lending norms by banks and imposition of higher interest rates have affected the sales performance of the company. It is, however, expanding the reach of its in-house financing company, Bajaj Auto Finance, to all outlets to fill the void.
The company has seen a decline of 1.4 per cent in sales during the first half of the current financial year with sales of 786,000. In comparison, Hero Honda , the market leader, has posted a gain of 20 per cent in sales during the same period at 1.8 million units.
In September, however, sales rose 5.5 per cent on higher exports. Bajaj Auto shares rose Rs 6.25, or 1.2 per cent, to Rs 535.45 at the close of trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange today. They have dropped 11.5 per cent in the year compared with a 35 per cent drop in the benchmark Sensitive index.
Bajaj Auto recently launched a new motorcycle Platina 125 in an attempt to woo buyers in the festive season. The 125cc bike, which is priced at Rs 39,000 (ex-showroom) is cheaper than India’s largest selling 100cc bike Hero Honda Splendor, which is priced at Rs 41,000.
[Via: Business-standard]
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Saturday, October 11th, 2008
Ashok Leyland saw sales of its commercial vehicles slide down to 6,186 units in September 2008, compared to 7,241 units sold in September 2007 - a decline of 14.57%. Burdened with unsold stock during the last few months, ALL cut down its production to 4,873 units in September, down from 6,546 units in September last year. During the first six months of this fiscal, ALL manufactured 41,233 units and sold 35,632 units. The company logged a 53% growth in exports in September, at 732 units, against 480 units in the year-ago period.
[Via: indiaautomotive]
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