What went wrong with Honda Jazz ?

After a rush of enquiries, Jazz seems to be losing fizz not only to competition but also to the other Honda brand – City.Jnaneswar Sen, marketing vice-president of Honda Siel Cars India, said, “From the time we launched Jazz, we have seen City volumes go up. We have observed that when customers walk into dealerships with the intention to purchase Jazz, they land up buying City.”"As a result, even though we received 50,000 enquiries for Jazz since its launch in June, the conversions have only been around 4,000, whereas in case of City the enquiries and conversions are both on an upswing. In fact, Jazz has helped increase the volumes for City,” he said. City, a saloon, costs Rs 1.25 lakh more than Jazz ,have witnessed 30 % increase in sales since the launch of Jazz.

Jazz sales have been declining from 2,020 units in june to 1,037 in July, 1,029 in August and just 504 units in September. Hormazd Sorabjee, Editor, Auto Car India, said, ” The problem with Jazz is its exorbitant pricing, due to which it is not only helping the customers go in for City by paying a lakh more but its is also making other cars in its competition like Hyundai i20 and Skoda Fabia look good.

The other thing is the saloon versus the hatchback phenomena, people are seeing more value in City and they wouldn’t mind paying a little extra and get a saloon over a hatchback.The market for premium hatchbacks is still very small in India and the pricing of Jazz plays to its disadvantage,besides the car being extremely expensive, it is also underpowered with a 1.2 litre engine.

A typical customer who has a sub Rs 5 lakh hatchback and is looking for an upgrade with Rs 8 lakh budget will naturally go in for a better powered City with a 1.5 litre engine than spending a huge amount to again purchase a hatchback. On the other hand, if we look at City, which is in the Rs 8 lakh plus segment, the only other competition is from Fiat’s Linea. After the initial spurt in Linea sales, there is a slump as it is underpowered with a 1.3/1.4 litre engine, thus boosting City sales again.”

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www.vahini.co.in

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