Toyota Yaris OUTSELLS Honda City despite being petrol-only car: 5 reasons

The recently launched Toyota Yaris C2-segment sedan has managed to outsell the Honda City in May 2018. The Yaris was launched at an introductory price of Rs. 8.75 lakh. Other than the City, it also rivals other popular sedans like the Maruti Ciaz and the Hyundai Verna. In the month of May 2018, Toyota Kirloskar Motor sold 2,843 units of the Yaris, which is marginally more than the 2,763 units of the Honda City that were sold last month.

While the Yaris, which is available with a petrol engine only, has managed to outsell the City, it’s far behind the Hyundai Verna (3,801 units) and the Maruti Ciaz (4,024 units) in terms of sales numbers. The Yaris comes equipped with a 1.5-litre petrol engine that outputs 108 PS and 140 Nm. In comparison, the City can be bought with either a petrol or a diesel engine.

Here are 5 reasons why the petrol-only Toyota Yaris has managed to outsell the Honda City. 

1st month = booking demand, and consequently higher dispatches

New cars generally witness a lot of demand soon after they are launched. There are some brand loyalists and new car buyers who decide to put their money on an upcoming vehicle as soon as the bookings open. This is owing to its novelty value and a lot of buzz on social media, etc. Hence, the dispatches to the dealerships are higher in the first month. This lead to a pretty high first-month sales figures.

Toyota badge value

While Honda is perceived as a premium brand in India, one Japanese brand that is even more respected is Toyota. Toyota cars are well-known for their high reliability and the resultant long life. Moreover, TKM offers a really customer-friendly after-sales experience. All this works in favour of the brand image and hence, most cars with a Toyota badge are considered very seriously by the car buyers.

Both manual and automatic gearboxes across all variants

Like we’ve been saying, the Indian car buying lot is finally warming up to automatic transmissions (ATs). While this has led to an increase in the popularity of automatic transmission-equipped vehicles, the fact that ATs are often available only on the high-end trims have kept many buyers away. This isn’t the case with the Yaris as the latest Toyota sedan offers the option of automatic transmission on every trim it is sold in. This works in favour of the new sedan as buyers can choose between manual and automatic transmission regardless of the trim-level.

BIG on features

The Toyota Yaris is a pretty feature-laden car. The top-end variant comes with some first-in-segment features such as gesture controlled touchscreen infotainment, ambient lighting, infrared-resistant tinted windows, power-adjustable driver’s seat, and roof mounted AC vents for the rear passengers.

Loaded base variant

The high-end features aren’t restricted to the top-end variant. All the variants of the Yaris come with a pretty long list of features, which includes 7 airbags, ABS, EBD, and tilt steering. All these factors have helped the Yaris find a favourable response from the car buyers.