Strike fails to sway demand for other brands

The agitation at Maruti's Manesar plant may have pushed the management to a corner, but it has done little damage to the demand some of its models enjoy, despite the extended waiting period.

The two-week disruption in production, which resulted in a loss of 12,600 units or nearly Rs 450 crore, led to long waiting periods of popular diesel cars such as Swift, DZire and SX4.

While it was widely expected within the industry that customers would sway towards other brands, which are easily available off-the-shelf, buyers largely chose to stick to Maruti Suzuki over the last few days.

"We were expecting to cash in on the opportunity with at least some demand flowing in from customers, who otherwise would have gone for Maruti. Even the company was expecting it, but it never happened," said a Mumbai-based dealer of Tata and Fiat cars. Tata retails the Indica and Indigo while the Fiat retails the Punto and Linea.

Although a latest version of the Swift is expected in a few weeks in India, this had little or no impact on the demand of the existing Swift. The diesel model of the car continued to have an average waiting period of more than three months in most market across the country.

The Swift remains the top selling premium hatchback from the market leader followed by Ritz in the same segment of Rs 430,000 and above. Since the gap between the price of petrol and diesel only widened over the past one year, consumers have increasingly preferred to go for diesel models despite their higher price tags.

Dealers of Japanese brand Nissan and American brand Ford in Delhi, too, did not experience any unusual spurt in inquiries. "Demand in the last few days has been the same as weeks before. Consumers are waiting for some respite in interest rates," said a Ford Motors dealer.

The Nissan Micra and Ford Figo are offered in diesel versions apart from the regular petrol. Ford witnessed a drop of 12 per cent in sales of Figo last month, while Nissan premium hatchback Micra sold less than 1,600 units.

While the car industry reported a mere seven per cent increase in May, most car makers, who sell diesel as an alternative version, stated that consumers have moved from petrol to diesel forcing some to dole out petrol model-related benefits.

For instance, Maruti is enticing buyers with free petrol equivalent to the fuel spend for the period of six months. Dealers said instead of the cash discount and other monetary incentives customers will get petrol of similar amount for free.

While Nissan is offering free fuel for an extended period of nine month, the Fabia from Czech car maker Skoda has seen a reduction in price, which now starts at Rs 399,000 from the earlier Rs 457,000.