After watching its market share shrink to miniscule 0.73% in January by not selling anything, Honda is taking all necessary steps to make a comeback in 2012. The company has recovered from the natural calamities that god threw at it and is eager to come out with all guns blazing.
First up, the Jazz and Brio bookings are re-opened in all major cities. The Tsunami floods in Thailand wrecked havoc on the production of both hatchbacks due to which bookings were stalled.
Honda India decided to outsource the component parts from other vendors from Japan and China. A week earlier the company had confirmed that it had started full capacity production work and is hoping to clear all the backlog by March.
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Honda may have struck gold by reducing the prices of the City and the Jazz, but that was short lived as the ecological disaster in Thailand derailed all plans of the company.
Many important components were supposed to be shipped from Thailand to India for the production. However, due to the floods, most Honda plants were shut for several months. It did not show new editions of the Civic and CR-V or make announcements at the Auto Expo as if to say it is consolidating and directing its efforts on areas that need immediate attention.
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Japanese auto magazine Mag-X is carrying an interesting article on a future member of the Jazz family. The company has used Jazz parts on the Brio, Fit Shuttle and the City sedan. Next in line is rumored to be a small crossover/SUV to compete with the likes of Ford EcoSport and Renault Duster.
We’re not entirely confident about the authenticity of this article as the next generation Jazz is scheduled for a late 2013 debut. If the underpinnings of the Jazz change, the addition is not going to use the outgoing model’s parts.
The Mag-X report citing inside sources claims the new model breaks cover in August 2014 and production is planned in China, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and Japan.
Companies have identified a huge potential untapped in the Indian market for mini SUVs/Crossovers. Companies are either presenting concept cars or production models at the Auto Expo this week. We’d be interested in understanding what Honda makes of this situation. The immediate focus will be to fill up gaps in the sub 10 lakh rupee segments – a sedan between the Brio and Jazz (Dzire rival), a mini crossover between the Jazz and City (Duster, EcoSport rival) and perhaps a 7 seat MPV above the City (Ertiga and Innova competitor) will go a long way in helping Honda widen its footprint in India.
This hasn’t been a very easy year for Honda. First the sudden shift of buying petrol to diesel, then came the devastating Tsunami which wrecked havoc on their production cycles. Just as Honda was recovering from the tsunami devastation, the Thailand floods brought them back to square one.
Now, it is reported that the Thailand floods have caused a major shortage of parts for the Indian subsidiary to such an extent that Honda India is forced to stop the production of the City sedan and the Brio hatchback. If the situation gets worse, the company will have stop the production of the Jazz as well.
The situation is bound to get worse in December. Honda India has confirmed that in December Jazz will have a skeletal production, around 250 units, and a few hundred units of the Civic and Accord sedans will be made. The company’s also stopped taking further bookings for the Jazz at its dealerships due to the uncertainty in the future.
The Brio has a backlog of 6,000 cars and the Jazz bookings run up to 4,000 units. The City might see some relief in February.
After a downward revision of the Jazz’s prices, Honda faces challenges at the supply end with demand exceeding expectations. According to a report on Live Mint, the Jazz is sold out till March 2012 and Brio till January 2012. But there’s a catch.
Despite a recent hike in the level of localization, there are certain electronic components for the mini cars that come from Japan. The country is still recovering from the double header that rocked the country in the form an earthquake and Tsunami during March this year. As Japan limps back on to its feet, another ecological disaster has struck Honda SIEL.
Heavy rains has caused severe flooding in Thailand, an important sourcing base for Honda in India. Visuals on television showed manufacturing parks submerged in the uncontrollably rising levels of water that brought parts of the country to a standstill.
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August 2011 has been an astonishingly amazing month for Honda Siel India. First, the Honda City has reclaimed its top position in the B+/C sedan market.
The news sounds even better when you know that this little sedan is not offered in a diesel option and its competitors have diesel variant. In a market where diesel is cheaper than petrol and gains advantage every now and then with a petrol price hike, a petrol car outselling the diesel rivals certainly talks volumes of Honda’s brand pull.
Just when we thought the news couldn’t get any better, we had a look at the Jazz’s sales figures and we were surprised to know that the Jazz sold 600 units in August. The last time we saw Jazz selling 600 odd units was way back in September 2010. Since then the sales of the Jazz were always below par, languishing at the bottom with the Chevrolet Aveo U-VA.
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There are two new cars for those petrol premium hatch buyers today in India. The first is of course the new Swift which has had a very strong start with 50k+ bookings and then there’s the cut-price Honda Jazz that lacks a diesel but makes up for that more with an amazing sticker price and huge amounts of space.
The Jazz has almost been down segmented and will piggyback on the Honda brand image in India.
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Honda launched the facelift version of the Jazz today morning in Delhi here at a famous hotel. The Jazz which is a globally successful premium hatch has been selling in India since mid-2009 but could never penetrate its segment due to extremely high prices.
The car won a lot of admirers but apart from the Honda badge and the confidence that comes with it, there was nothing the competition didn’t offer.
Recently Honda, in a stock clearance sale, slashed prices of the Jazz by more than 1.5 lac so that the old car could make way for the new one. The operation was successful as it did take more than a week for the stagnating cars to vanish from showroom yards.
At the press conference today Honda representatives mentioned that they are in a state of recovery from the Japanese quakes that took lives and wiped out installations in early March. It could take them a few months for reaching normal production levels. Honda said it’s ‘better than before but not normal’.
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After watching its market share shrink to miniscule 0.73% in January by not selling anything, Honda is taking all necessary steps to make a comeback in 2012. The company has recovered from the natural calamities that god threw at it and is eager to come out with all guns blazing.
