Mercedes finally decides to enter in city bus segment

Mercedes Benz, the number one CV maker in the world has finally decided to enter in to City bus segment. Volvo bus is the market leader with its bus being used in the Rapid transit systems at Bangalore and Delhi successfully since it first started its bus running on Bangalore roads in 2006. Presently the low floor, City buses from Volvo run in 10 cities but 80% of the total vehicles being in Delhi and Bangalore.

Mercedes that has the 2 and 3 axle tourist buses in India for some reason decided so late to look in to this segment especially the Indian Metro cities are getting make over for their infrastructure and has strong blessing from Government with funds for urban development. The market is expected to grow at around 15-20% and events like the commonwealth Games would trigger the spike in demands.

Never the less this would trigger some competition to Volvo that has around 30% premium in pricing than its Indian competitors, TATA and Ashok Leyland due to its better quality, life and maintenance terms is expected to get to compete with Mercedes on the same lines.

Sales momentum continues in May’10

The automotive sales momentum continued during the month of May in spite of increased prices.

Maruti hit records with per month sales of crossing 100,000 cars first in the history. Ford and GM continued their growth rate of over 150% with their Figo and Beat respectively.
Toyota has introduced a special edition of Innova for its 5th year since its most successful model in India.

The luxury segment also has seen a great momentum with Mercedes and Audi clocking over 100% growth.

Honda is the only company that again seen a negative growth.

TATA motor’s Sanand plant in Gujrat started rolling out the NANO which it hopes to cover the backlogs.

Hyundai motors caught in to an ugly row with labor dispute taking in to effect of closing the production for 2 successive days in June.

In June the Petrol and Diesel prices are rumored to be hiked by Rs3 could impact the sales. However the upbeat Indian services sector has over shadowed the inflation as people are upbeat in their spending.

	May-10	May-09
Hundai Motors
growth	7.00%
sales	46808	43624
domestic	27151	23503
export	19657	20121
Maruti suzuki
growth	29.70%
sales	102175	79872
domestic	90041	70785
export	12134	9087
GM
growth	61%
sales	8225	5109
TATA motors
growth	41%
sales	56799	40196
cars	39.00%
sales	21326	16563
exports	3978	1804
lcv	17615	13740
M&HCV	13860	5405
cvs	31475	23004
M&M
growth	69.00%
sales	28486	16866
three wheeler
	6641	2703
utility vehicles	19.00%
	18940	12620
logan	450	427
cv growth	17.00%
cv sales	1005	831
exports	1068	285
Ashok Leyland
growth	97%
sales	6502	1977
domestic	5973	1697
export	529	280
Honda
growth	-0.15%
sales	4067	4073
Mercedes
growth	112%
sales	410	193
Audi
sales	200	121
Toyota
growth	77%
cars, SUV	6050	3924
Ford
growth	300.00%
sales	8080	2168
Eicher
growth	44.00%
sales	2801	1233
domestic	2488	1128
exports	313	105

Mahindra in final league to bid for Ssangyong Motors

Mahindra & Mahindra is selected for final level bidding for the troubled Korean automaker Saangyong Motors. Mahindra is one of the last 6 companies in the race that includes a fellow Indian company Dunlop; a tyre manufacturing company, Nissan with its JV partner Samsung Korea, Seoul Invest a south Korean PE company, Daewoo Bus and an undisclosed Korean investment arm.

Toyota’s plan to gear up to meet demand in India

Toyota Kirloskar Motors in India indicated its plan to enter in to engine manufacturing and R&D facility in India soon. The much anticipated Etios that is modeled to suit to Indian conditions is expected to hit the roads in Early 2011. When it was displayed at Delhi Auto expo early this year it was announced to be launched by end of this year. It is Toyota attempt to capture the popular segment which is dominated by Maruti Swift and Hundai i10, i20 with price range of 4.5 lakh to 6 lakh. The Etios would have both hatchback and sedan versions in 1.2 and 1.5 ltr Petrol version.

Presently Toyota has Corolla Altis, Camry, Fortuner and its most popular MPV Innova models in India. A special edition of Innova was launched last week to commemorate the launch of Innova 5 years ago. Innova has over 30% market share in MPV segment and market leader.