Chevrolet Sail sedan clocks 1000 bookings

GM India unwrapped the Chevrolet Sail sedan on the 1^st of February. Priced very aggressively, the Sail sedan offers maximum bang for the buck in the entry sedan segment.

Various auto blogs and channels report that the Sail sedan has clocked over 1,000 bookings since it was launched.

A detailed analysis of the sales figures tells us that 836 units of Sail sedan were booked even before the official launch. Diving down deeper, we also realize that demand for diesel Sail was more than three times to that of petrol Sail. There were 638 bookings for diesel and only 198 bookings for petrol.

1000 bookings in the first nine days isn't a bad start but GM India wants to sell 48,000 units of the Sail platform models in this year. The American automaker will be only concentrating on the domestic market for now. The Sail is exported at least 16 countries from the China plant but in India, the car is localized heavily.

The market continued to remain sluggish in the second half of 2012 because of rising interest rates and GM believes that the market will not improve until the interest rates come down. Possibly, the soon to-happen meeting between Minister for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Praful Patel and the Finance Minister for an automotive stimulus package could bring some joy to GM India.

GM has been operating in this country for the last 17 years (including Opel's time) but has still not managed to breakeven. The American automaker hopes to do so in the next four years. Mass market products such as the Sail, Spark, Enjoy and Tavera have to do well if the bowtie has to put the past behind and start making profits.