Honda to roll out new Jazz this year

Will come after the seven-seater multi-purpose vehicle Mobilio

Japanese auto giant Honda is gearing up to launch its new Jazz premium hatchback model in India sometime during this financial year, according to Jnaneswar Sen, senior vice president, marketing and sales, Honda Cars India Limited (HCIL).

“The new Honda Jazz will come after our mid-sized, seven-seater multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) Mobilio's entry into the Indian market in July 2014. We are currently working on the exact timing for the launch of Jazz,” he told mediapersons here on Monday.

Honda’s Mobilio, launched first in Indonesia in January, will be manufactured at the company's Greater Noida plant, which has a capacity of 120,000 units a year. In the close to 140,000-unit MPV market in India, Mobilio will be competing directly with Maruti Suzuki’s Ertiga, Mahindra’s Xylo, Toyota’s Innova and Nissan’s Evalia.

“Mobilio has been designed based on a lot of customer understanding. Our last three launches – Brio, Amaze and City – had around 90 per cent localisation. The MPV should also be having a similar localisation,” Sen said, adding the company, however, was yet to zero in on the exact localisation component and the pricing for Mobilio’s petrol and diesel variants.

Stating that localisation and introduction of the 1.5-litre i-DTEC diesel engine had been helping HCIL to launch new models at competitive prices, Sen said the company posted its highest-ever annual sales of 134,339 units across its portfolio in India during 2013-14, a growth of 83 per cent over the previous year.

He said the limited edition models helped the company communicate to the market, and also added to its incremental sales figures.