When it
comes to status
Are we Close to time when we will see BMW, Audi,
Benz, Jaguar, and Accord on road as every 4th or 5th cars?
Let me put my view on it and clarify it a little bit.
India has
come a long way from the Indian Mercedes, Hindustan Motors contessa to new age
Mercedes Benz CLS AMG now being sold in 37 cities across India.
If you
ask someone of the time of 1985 or 1990 to count the number of cars, hardly he
will be able to touch the figure of 3 or 4. Having ambassador used to be the
social status those days and people used to flaunt their car whenever they used
to get the opportunity. Kids used to follow these cars and used to say oh today
I saw a car. That was also a time, than it was time for most selling car in
Indian market. I thought you have already thought before I right, it was Maruti
800 to revolutionize the Indian car market.
After
Liberalization in India it was time to change or upgradation in status to say.
Many foreign companies started to invest in India and started marketing their
product in lucrative or under developed Indian Market. Suzuki was the pioneer
to grab the opportunity and they did well in Indian market with product like
Maruti-800, Esteem, Alto, Baleno etc. Honda and Hyundai were bit late entrant
in the Indian Market.
Time
changes, Ambassador and 800 were out of market and market was upgraded with new
launches like Santro, Wagonr, Ritz etc for mass market and for upper segment
Honda City, Hyundai Verna were there. Those days Honda City and Verna used to
target high segment of market or to say high income people. I remember when I
was in Gurgaon in 2008-09 I used to see Honda City as like today we see Audi,
BMW or Benz.
If we
compare today we will see demography of their (Honda City, Verna) target
customer has changed and now their target lies in mid segment only. The
audience to whom they were targeting is taken away by BMW, Audi and Benz by
launching entry level luxury cars under price tag of Rs. 25 lacks and Honda
City or Verna is no longer aspiration cars for high income group. I remember
3-4 years back people used to wait to see BMW, Audi, Benz etc cars on road and
today every second we can see these car and today people aspire to see
Lamborghini, Ferrari, Bentley, Aston Martin, Bhugati in India not BMW, Audi,
Mercedes or Jaguar. These German majors like Mercedes, Audi and BMW which
earlier belonged to high-end super luxurious segment are now perceived as
affordable luxury in comparison to the entry of luxury cars like Bentley, Rolls
Royce, Bhugati, Aston Martin, Lamborghini and Ferrari.
If we
understand the market upgradation clearly than it won’t be surprising if I say
days are not far away when BMW, Audi, Benz will become common man car in India.
