Tata Motors sees 'white spaces' in car segment

Tata Motors, India's fifth largest car maker, is ready to experiment with new products, which it says would address white spaces in the passenger vehicle segment and help it reclaim lost market share.

The company has lined up a series of new products in the hatchback, sedan and sport utility vehicle segment, in line with its promise of launching at least two new products every year.

Girish Wagh, senior VP of programme planning and management for passenger cars Tata Motors said, "Till a new product comes we always think that there are no white spaces. Till the time (Renault) Duster was launched we always thought that the market was saturated and same goes for (Maruti) Ertiga."

Other recent successful examples of products filling white spaces are the Hyundai Elite i20 (premium hatchback), Ford EcoSport (compact SUV), Toyota Etios Cross (Crossover) and Mercedes-Benz A Class (luxury hatchback).

The company will launch a new hatchback and a sedan based on that hatchback this financial year. Though the existing Zest and Bolt play under the four-meter space, the new launches will also be launched in the same segment albeit under a different positioning.

"The hatch market is almost 50% and sedans are 20%, so 70% of the market is hatchback and sedans. So you cannot have just one hatch and one sedan. In terms of pricing and customer groups and terms of product attributes, you can clearly have different positioning of the products by which you will be addressing specific requirements of customers", added Wagh.

Sources say that the upcoming hatchback 'Kite', which is scheduled for launch around the festive season, will be positioned between the Nano and Bolt, close to the space where Indica operates while the sedan will be positioned below the Zest. Wagh declined to provide any details about the new launches.

"So we have Bolt and Zest (which) will be at a particular level - sportier, aggressive, masculine - and with high end features. So these are the products today we have at the personal level but they dont cover the entire segment. There are very clear positioning gaps which we will close with our new products. And if you don't make a product with good attributes somebody else will and finally a good product wins", added Wagh.

Design of the 'Kite' will signal a sharp departure from Tata Motors' traditional design themes such as the Indica or the Indigo. It will be devoid of Indica's 'Christmas tree-style' tail lamps and will instead have a 'diamond-style' wraparound tail lamp.

"We will continue to see very unique, differentiated design, with those common DNA elements, but manifestation will be different. What will also be seen is new cars having connectivity attributes depending on the segment it is operating in," added Wagh.