New cars that haven't lived up to their initial hype

With one Ford Fiesta being sold every two minutes in 2012 in Europe, the US carmaker Ford Motor Co. harboured a lot of expectations on the car doing well in India, when it was launched in India a couple of years ago, emboldened by the success of Figo, its popular hatchback in the market. Fiesta, was touted as the big rival, was expected to threaten leaders in the sedan space such as Honda City and Hyundai Verna. 

Today, the sale of Fiesta is lagging behind its peers and does not make up for tenth of highest-selling sedan Hyundai Verna in the mid-size segment. ET learns Ford has sold just 1957 units on Fiesta for the entire fiscal year of FY-13, which is an average of 163 units a month, as against Hyundai Verna, which sold about 4,800 units to 5,000 units a month. 

Fiesta is not alone. Models such as Tata Aria, Nissan Evalia and General Motor's Chevrolet Sail hatchback were launched with a lot of expectation, but could not deliver the desired result. Aria, Fiesta and Evalia are yet to achieve 10 per cent of what they intended, according to vendors. GM, however, managed to achieve 50-60 per cent of it targeted volumes for its hatchback Sail by selling an averaging of 1,200 units a month. 

Nissan India was targeting to sell at least 2,000 units of Evalia every month. However, its monthly sales over the past six months have averaged at little over 200 units. Tata Aria, despite introducing entry level 'Pure' variant and offering steep discounts, had touched a low of four units in the month of February. 

Experts say somehow premium and Tata don't go well together, as the company over the years has delivered value for money models. Ford Fiesta was hit due to its premium pricing. Nissan Evalia's van-like looks didn't invite much attention and Chevrolet Sail, the highest selling car brand in China, has got hit due to no major differentiator versus best-selling Maruti Suzuki Swift or Hyundai i20 and the overall market environment, too, made it difficult for these models.

According to Pradeep Saxena, executive director at marketing research firm TNS Automotive all these models have failed to come in the consideration set of prospective buyers on various front. For some of these models it was an issue of value proposition (Fiesta and Aria), Chevrolet Sail is a me-too offering with nothing additional in a highly competitive space and for some it was just about creating enough awareness (Evalia, Aria and Sail).

"These models failed to create familiarity and salience in consumer mind and hence they didn't get good response from the market," said Saxena. When queried on lower volumes of Fiesta, Ford India spokesperson said, Fiesta is a globally successful 'One Ford' product and it was aimed at creating a niche in the segment, it was positioned."

While India is a complex and a price sensitive market, the company took a conscious step of introducing globally successful One Ford product. Fiesta's segment performance and consumer acceptance should be seen through a prism of brand value propositions, and not only from a volume perspective because for Ford," asserted the Ford India spokesperson. 

People close to Tata Motors said it's not Aria alone, every brand has met resistance in the market over the last one year, with consumer sentiment very low. "Through Aria, the company is trying to make a transition to a certain type of vehicle which is premium and its take a long time to create that image. Is the company happy with the volumes? Not at all. What is it doing to deal with it? It will have refreshes and variants on the platform to build the brand going ahead," said a person close to Tata Motors. 

Experts also suggest it is too early to write off Chevrolet Sail and Nissan Evalia, as these products have been in the market for just six months. "They have got good reviews but have been launched in very tough environment. Improvement is market environment will surely help these products," said an industry analyst. 

Lowell Paddock, MD, GM India says, "the performance of the hatchback has been slow off the mark due to the overall adverse macro-economic environment.\It is a slow starter, but it is gaining speed. I have been visiting dealers since the last few days and the feedback is positive. Sail has been a winning product wherever it has been launched. It is just the start for us in India (for Sail), we are confident it will gain speed with high number of 7,000 bookings for the Sail sedan.

Get latest updates on
the automobile community

Login Now

"If awards are a criterion for a good car to do well in the market place, Sail has bagged five awards in its category in the last year alone", Paddock said. Nissan Motor India spokesperson too blamed it on the market environment, "We cannot attribute low sales only to the product. Evalia was launched against highly challenging backdrop during unforeseen headwinds in India. Several other factors affected the numbers." Nissan says it is confident with the strong sales & marketing strategy and robust retail network coming up it will help the company in positioning the vehicle strongly. 

Can these models be late bloomers? 

Experts say, what is worrying is, manufacturers have invested millions of dollars on these models and they have started failing at a very early stage of their lifecycle and reviving them would mean incurring additional cost of promotion. Tata Motors, Ford, GM have already resorted to price correction and have brought models at lower price points. ET learns that Ford and Tata Motors have already planned refreshes and variants of Fiesta and Aria respectively going ahead. 

It is possible to make a comeback says, Saxena of TNS Automotive. "For sure they can comeback, but they will have to invest sufficient money on them, product wise all of them are good. They will have to ensure that these brands meet the needs of potential buyers emotionally as well as functionally, be it Fiesta, Aria, Sail or an Evalia," added Saxena.