Exports bolster weak sales for Vento, Sunny

Exports of the Volkswagen Vento and Nissan Sunny are much higher than their domestic sales. SIAM’s sales report clearly shows increased exports for these two models. 

Volkswagen sold 1,190 units of the Vento in the domestic market in Feb 2014 as opposed to 5,028 exports. That’s almost five times as many. In the Sunny’s case, the ratio is much higher. 5,155 units of the Nissan Sunny were exported last month while only 246 units were sold in India, over 20 times as many. And this doesn’t seem to be a single month occurrence as January 2014 shows similar numbers – 3,148 units exported to 1,293 units locally sold for the Vento and 3,222 exports to 646 unit domestic sales for the Sunny. 

This can be seen as a sign of the new Honda City eating up the opposition’s market share and the reaction by Volkswagen and Nissan – upping exports to bolster weak sales. It also keeps production levels steady this way. The new Honda City is selling over 7,000 units every month since its launch in January 2014. While the erstwhile segment leader, Hyundai Verna, is averaging around 3,500 units since then, other carmakers are facing the heat.

Poor domestic market performance may not be the only criteria for a car’s success in India anymore. The Nissan Micra is an excellent example of this. Nissan’s plans to make India the export hub for its hatchback has proved to work in the Japanese carmaker’s favour. Although only about 11,000 units of the Nissan Micra were sold locally in this financial year, over 73,000 units were exported. This number is likely to cross the 80,000 mark as FY13-14 comes to an end.

The Volkswagen Vento’s exports in FY13-14 till February stand at 26,474 units, about 9,000 units more than its domestic sales. In case of the Nissan Sunny, the numbers are much higher – 32,848 unit exports to 7,355 domestic car sales. 

Both the Volkswagen Vento and the Nissan Sunny are exported to Asian and African markets and towards the end of 2013, Volkswagen also began exporting the Vento to Mexico.