VW, Ford giving cut-throat competition to Maruti Suzuki, Toyota

Auto-makers of new cars like Ford, Volkswagen are giving strict competition to the existing market rulers like Maruti Suzuki and Toyota motors. Ford and Volkswagen recently launched their premier hatchbacks, Volkswagen Polo and Ford Figo that have surpassed expected sales and are now offering waiting periods to the ones already booked. For the first time in a decade, since Ford had entered the Indian market did it have to start an additional shift of production due to high demand and less supply.

Volkswagen Polo which is a lakh costlier than Figo, is already short of the bookings and their is a backlog of some thousand units already. The senior officials from the company commented that it takes time for a Polo to reach its customer as it is imported as a completely built in unit in India.

With the entrance of new players in the market the existing players are finding it difficult to meet their sales targets. Maruti Alto, country's best selling car saw a decline of 30 per cent to 16,397 units as against 23,569 units in April 2009. Company's and country's second largest selling car Maruti Wagon R also saw whopping 27 per cent hit in March. Joining the league was Tata Indica and Honda CR-V that also witnessed their sales go down by 15 per cent and 77 per cent respectively.

Toyota Kirloskar motors, has been facing a supply shortage for its best selling SUV, Toyota Fortuner and the company has finally being turning down any booking requests for the same. The company has even doubled the production of this SUV but that too has failed to satisfy the customer demand for the car leading to turning down sales.

The trend in India seems to be shifted towards newer cars that give customers a sense of novelty and makes them look different. Customers these days don't mind spending bucks if they are offered something worth it and especially they are readily willing to invest in popular brands. Even Volkswagen Beetle surpassed all demand expectations in the country. Neeraj Garg of Volkswagen Group Sales India said that Indians are now moving towards novelty even if it costs them more.