Tata Motors beats Honda in India

Tata Motors has beaten Honda Cars India to become India’s 4th largest car maker in September 2017. The Indian automaker sold 19,334 units in September 2017 whereas Honda Cars India sold 18,257 units in the same month. Honda and Tata are neck and neck in the race to be the fourth largest car maker in India (over the whole fiscal year).

In the first six months of fiscal year 2018 (April-September), Honda outsold Tata Motors in April, July and August, while Tata did better in May, June and September. Over the next six months, Tata may grow its lead over Honda as it has launched more new cars than Honda in 2017.

The Hexa premium crossover, Nexon compact SUV, the Tiago entry-level hatchback and the Tigor compact sedan are all working well for the company. In the coming months, if the Nexon’s sales pick up further, Tata may even challenge Mahindra for the 3rd spot in India.

On the other hand, the only two cars bringing in the big numbers for Honda are the WR-V hatchback-based crossover and the City C-segment sedan. In 2018, Tata will launch another car aimed at volumes – a premium hatchback based on the AMP platform that will challenge the Hyundai i20 Elite and the Maruti Baleno. Other cars to boost volumes for Tata will be AMT variants of the Tiago, Tigor and Nexon.

Honda is expected to launch the Civic premium sedan, and the 7 seat version of the CR-V. Both cars are likely to get diesel engine options. Yet, they’re not really volume baggers, which means that it’s advantage Tata going into 2018. Tata will find it harder to reach the third place though.

In 2018, Mahindra is coming up with the U321 premium MPV (Innova Crysta challenger), a longer TUV300 (7 seat model to replace the Xylo), AMT versions of the KUV100, a Scorpio Facelift and the new S201 (Ssanyong Tivoli with Mahindra badging) compact SUV. The S201 will be sold with two lengths – in 5 seat and 7 seat combinations.

Via ETAuto