Thursday 4 April 2013

Ford Fiesta, Tata Aria, Nissan Evalia: Launched with great expectations but failed to deliver





With one Ford Fiesta being sold every two minutes in 2012 in Europe, the US car maker 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, 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 SailBSE 0.90 % hatchback were launched with a lot of expectation, but could not deliver the desired result. Aria, Fiesta and Evalia are yet to achieve 10% of what they intended, according to vendors. GM however managed to achieve 50-60% 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. All these models are of strategic importance to each of these manufacturers. 
All these models are of strategic importance to each of these manufacturers. They were either aimed at expanding the portfolio or targeted to bring in additional volumes from the growing segments. 
Experts say the reasons for lukewarm response are very specific for all these models. Tata Aria was positioned as a premium crossover. 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 BSE 2.87 % Swift or Hyundai i20 and the overall market environment, too, made it difficult for these models.

Today, the sale of Fiesta is lagging behind its peers and does not make up for a tenth of highest-selling sedan Hyundai Verna in the mid-size segment.

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).

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