For a populace that is traditionally considered cash-rich, and a city that sports the tag of the second business capital of the state, car buyers in Vijaywada are clearly a conservative lot. | |
| A survey on car sales in the city has thrown up some very interesting trends. One, luxury cars or the D and E segment automobiles get a big thumb down. Unbelievably, there are only four or five Mercedez Benz car owners in the city and one industrialist owns two out of these. |
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| So while car sales across categories are booming elsewhere in the country, in Vijaywada only the sub-Rs 5 lakh cars are scorching sales charts. |
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| Sundaram Motors,the single largest chain of automobile dealerships across the south which represents both Honda and Ford in the city, has found sales healthy but not chart busting. |
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| B Poornachandra Rao, the assistant sales manager of Sundaram Honda, points out that while there has been a perceptible change in the likings of car lovers during the last four years in favour of mid-segment cars the results are yet to be felt in the city. "It may be felt only in the coming years. "People are rich, but they do not want to demonstrate it," Rao says. |
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| Speaking on behalf of Sundaram Ford also, Rao said they were selling 15 units of Flair and Ikon (diesel and petrol). Rao said the dealership was selling close to 15 Honda City, both EXI and GXI models, a month on an average. "We expect to sell close to 20 City's a month starting March," Rao said. |
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| In the premium D segment, Sundaram has sold only a total of 10 Honda Accord's last year. In the SUV segment, the dealership has so far sold only one Honda CR-V in Vijayawada and 3 in the coastal belt. |
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| Hyundai, India's second largest car manufacturer, finds itself in a position where it is selling only one Sonata a month on an average. The company's dealer though is able to sell close to 15 Accents and 35 Santros every month. Hyundai is yet to make a single sale of its SUV (sports utility vehicle) offering the Terracan in the city. |
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| Car models from the Tata stable are doing well. R Suresh kumar, the general manager of the Tata Motors dealership, said they were in fact running short of Indigo cars and Safari MUVs. Tata Motors has sold close to 138 Indigo and 18 Safari's since April last year. "If we had more supply we could have sold 200 Indigo cars," he points out. |
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| But the preference of Vijaywada car buyers for diesel vehicles is clearly frustrating the efforts of some car companies. Taking a dig at car buyers, V Srinivas, who represents General Motors (GM) in the city, said that Vijaywada car owners did not know the value of cars. |
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| "Irrespective of the purpose for which they buy a car, people in the coastal Andhra buy diesel cars just like car buyers in Kerala. Even owners of Mercedez Benz cars go in for diesel models," Srinivas points out. |
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| Against this background, GM's petrol models have put up a satisfactory sales performance, h e said. GM sells between 25 and 30 units of Opel Corsa and Chevrolet in the city every month. |
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| An executive of Mithra Agencies, the dealer for Maruti, who preferred anonymity, said that they sold one or two cars in the mid segment (Baleno, Altura and Versa) in one month and no more. But sales were going great guns in the small segment. |
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| Premium cars do not hold interest in the used car segment also. The second hand car market in the city largely caters to the demands of small and mid segment car buyers. There are about 20 second hand car dealers in Vijayawada. |
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| P Veerabhadra Rao of Sai Car Corner, a leading used car dealer in the city, admits that there is practically no demand for the premium segment cars in the second hand car market. |
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