Good car gone bad: Honda Jazz May 2010 sales at an abysmal 205 while the Indian Car Industry Celebrates highest ever May sales

Honda Jazz

The writing was on the wall for quite some time. Now the sales figures reflect the sheer tragedy that the overpriced Honda Jazz has been. Massive discounts didn’t work. Nor did the jazzy special editions. Now, we have the Honda Jazz selling a pitiable 205 units across India in May, 2010. This, at a time in which every manufacturer worth it’s wheel has managed to muster it’s best or close to it’s best monthly sales figures.

All New Honda City

Neither are Honda’s other Indian car models doing all that well. Honda’s May sales in 2010 have actually declined to 4,067 units vis-a-vis 4,073 units in May 2009. This is a clear indication of competition simply knocking the wind off Honda’s sales, whose overpriced products have simply lost their sheen in a market that offers car buyers alternatives that are cheaper and feature rich.

Honda Civic

The Honda Jazz was and is a great car, but it’s pricing killed it. The All New Honda City: Putting bread on the Honda table by being the only saving grace though it too is showing a slight drop in sales. Honda Civic: Great car but Indian car buyers seem to prefer the Toyota Corolla Altis and the Chevrolet Cruze Diesel. Now, the Toyota Corolla Altis Diesel will also join the party shortly? We shudder to think what will happen to the Civic then. Honda Accord: The Skoda Superb offers much more at the same price and the BMW 320d Corporate Editions are within striking distance? Honda CR-V: How about the much cheaper Toyota Fortuner, with more importantly with a diesel heart to boot? Meanwhile, at the hustings, Ford and GM India have now dethroned Honda to usurp the 5th and 6th places in the sales pecking order. That really sums up Honda India and it’s terrible run in the past one year or so.

Honda Accord

Now is Honda India really losing the plot here. We don’t know. What we know for a fact is Honda India needs to get down from the premium brand syndrome it has been afflicted with and wake up and smell some good old Indian coffee. What Indian car buyers are looking for are looking at are quality, but at a price and feature set that are in line with what the competition has to offer. Also, it seems like it is high time that Honda stop talking about their diesel engines not being suitable for Indian fuels and brig them in, ASAP. If the Honda diesel engines really cannot cope with Indian diesel, then Honda better go back to the drawing board and bring in some CRDI diesels like the rest of the Indian car industry seems to be doing. Without a single diesel engine in it’s Indian range, Honda seems to be really faltering or is it banking on premium pricing instead of volumes.

Honda CR-V

Now, the car that could change this all will be the Honda Small Car Concept. But here again, the car will hit Indian shores only in late 2011 and even so, the car will still retain the traditional Honda snobbishness in the pricing level. That won’t help matters, will it? The first gen Honda Citys(OHC) sold like hot cakes simply for the brilliant Honda quality, the terrific engines and of course, Honda’s badge value. Back then there were only the Mitsubishi Lancer and Opel Astra for competition. Now of course, we all know what the competition level in the Indian car industry is. For the third time, right here on this very blog, are you listening Honda?

2011 Honda Small Car Concept

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June 3, 2010 | By Jay Prashanth · Tags: 2011 Honda Small Car Concept, Honda Car Sales, Honda CR-V, Honda Jazz, Honda's Abysmal Sales

Comments

8 Responses to “Good car gone bad: Honda Jazz May 2010 sales at an abysmal 205 while the Indian Car Industry Celebrates highest ever May sales”

jay on June 3rd, 2010 3:03 pm

the jazz is a good car, but then expectations from the car should be according.

if you want to price a hatchback precariously close to a sedan…you will have to pay the price.

Indian car market is not yet developed to pay 8.5 lacs for a hatch. even honda badge brings in snob value but it still will not push the indian guy to shell our 2.5 lacs more.

cheers,
jay
makamuku shizukushi on June 3rd, 2010 6:24 pm

I am the happiest man in this world to celebrate
the super duper failure of Honda Jazz.I was one of the first guys following up with dealers to know the launch as I had wished to buy this car,having seen the technicalities of this car in UK.I could not afford the price.

This is the biggest lesson for the Hondas,
It will go down in the channels of history as The least purchased car in India in the last decade.Keep it up Honda and remember if you play with emotions of Indians with high price then you will go to the garbage bin.

Sweets and lots of sweets to the whole of India and Indian people for making this car a super duper bumper flop car in the history of Indian Auto.
nawal Bhatt on June 10th, 2010 11:28 am

It is surprising that no one other than Honda has paid the price for the biggest pricing goofup in Indian Automobile history.To price a smallcar at 7.8 lakhs , to not pass on the excise benifits, to withdrew a fast selling city model simply to force people to downgrade to Jazz, to offer stupid accessories in lieu of high prices, to constantly sneer at customers about Customers have to pay for quality( why-arnt the competitors offering poor quality).
Honda has to sack the entire top management team which made the Indian customer lose faith in the Honda brand.
If not then bring on the small car and see another JAZZ sequel.
Sumit on June 18th, 2010 5:07 pm

Shame on Honda, still considering India as immature market….
Emert on January 2nd, 2011 5:44 am

Great blog. Will visit again. :-)
Munafo on January 9th, 2011 11:51 pm

Great post!
Thanks
Johson on November 8th, 2011 10:42 pm

Insightful article. Thanks.
Yarnall on November 29th, 2011 2:36 pm

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