End of the road for Tata Manza?

Significant drop in production fuels possibility of the sedan's withdrawal

The Manza is struggling to keep pace with rivals in its segment, fuelling the possibility of Tata Motors withdrawing its only mid-sized sedan from the market.

In the first six months of the year, the Mumbai-based automobile company has managed to sell only 776 units of the Manza, a drop of 26 per cent from 1,054 in the same period last year.

The average monthly sales volume for the Manza this year has been 130 units. By comparison, the Honda City, the bestseller in the segment, sold an average 5,841 units a month and reported an almost 200 per cent annual sales growth in the first six months. While the City controls 45 per cent of the market in the segment, the Manzas share is only one per cent.

According to a senior Tata Motors official, the company is taking aggressive steps to correct its product portfolio, with a more “cleverly defined and targeted strategy”. It recently phased out the first-generation Nanos from the market to make way for the upgraded Nano Twist and Nano eMax variants.

The Manza has also faced stiff competition from foreign brands — Hyundai’s Verna, Skoda’s Rapid and Volkswagen’s Vento clock much higher sales.

A senior executive at Tata Motors’ Ranjangaon plant in Pune, where the Manza is manufactured, said: “Production of the Manza has gone down significantly. It is produced intermittently, with little demand from dealers. Though production has not fully stopped, it is moving in that direction and a further output drop is expected.”

A Mumbai-based Tata dealer confirmed that no new orders were placed for the Manza, out of fear the model might be phased out. “There is no demand for the Manza at present. Discounts on the car had to be increased. New inventory will bring more pressure on us to liquidate those if the model is phased out anytime soon,”

Launched in 2009 as the Indigo Manza, the car was built on an entirely new ~2,000-crore platform that also served the Vista hatchback. Tata Motors dropped the Indigo moniker two years later, after a minor facelift to the sedan.

The Manza was positioned as a more expensive elder sibling of the Indigo and Indigo XL sedans, with petrol and diesel engines purchased from the Tata-Fiat manufacturing joint venture.

Sources said the company was now putting its focus behind the Zest sedan, which has been received well in the market. This model is the latest from Tata Motors, which is struggling to arrest a slide in its share of the passenger vehicle market.

Tata Motors’ immediate focus, however, is to streamline production of the Zest, as its customers currently have to wait for up to six months to receive the car. The automated manual transmission (AMT) version of the car, sold with a diesel engine, has an extended waiting period because of problems in procurement of AMT kits.

A spokesperson for Tata Motors said: “The Manza and the Zest address two completely different segments. At present, we do not have any announcement for phase-out of any product.”