Tata Motors' GenX Nano yet to gain pace in volumes

GenX Nano, launched by Tata Motors in May last year to push up sagging sales of the country’s cheapest car, has not been able to deliver yet. Sales volume of Nano, though more than the previous year, is much lower than most of the early years.

The company has sold 15,772 units of the GenX Nano in domestic market till December against 10,306 units of the earlier model sold in May-December period of 2014-15. The 53% increase year-on-year looks impressive, but is way below the high sales mark touched by the car in the past. The company is current selling an average 2,000 units of Nano each month, which happens to be lower than the high monthly average of 4,500 in 2012-13 and over 6,000 units in 2011-12.

Tata Motors, however, has a different view on the response GenX Nano has generated. “We are glad with the response the Nano brand has seen since the launch of GenX Nano and the overall re-positioning of the brand. In addition, features like ‘Easy Shift’ Automated Manual Transmission with ‘Sports’ mode for enhanced acceleration, ‘creep’ feature for heavy traffic manoeuvrability and parking ease have driven the traction for Nano. We continue to see fresh set of customers, first time car buyers from, visiting our showrooms”, said a company spokesperson.

Numbers, however, are yet to pick up. In fact, the company sold just 1,374 units in December 2015 against 1,414 units in same month of 2014. The first make of Nano had seen a peak monthly sale as high as 10,389 units in October 2011.

The launch of GenX Nano in May was followed by the launch of Kwid in September, just before the festive season. The French car maker has aggressively priced the hatchback at Rs 2.56 lakh, not much above GenX Nano’s entry level price of Rs 1.99 lakh. Kwid has managed to get bookings of over 85,000 units in less than four months, eating into the entry level market of Maruti Suzuki Alto and even GenX Nano.

"The Indian buyer has always sought more for less and this is a challenge that most car makers face in India. An entry level car has to be low on price and high on features.

This market is constantly evolving and Kwid has managed to draw the attention”, said an automobile analyst.

Tata Motors’ Sanand plant in Gujarat, set up with an annual capacity of 250,000 units dedicated to Nano, has been running at a barely one-tenth utilisation for some time now.

The company has decided to manufacture its upcoming hatchback Zica from the Sanand unit to ‘optimally utilise the plant’.

Nano was the dream project of Ratan Tata, the former Tata Sons chairman, who had made a promise to sell Nano for Rs 100,000, positioning it as the cheapest car. Tata later said branding the car as ‘cheapest’ was a mistake. Indeed, Nano has not remained cheap. Changing features and costs however pushed up the price much above that mark. GenX was not the first major relaunch of the Nano. In January 2014, the company had done another makeover by launching Nano Twist. Sixteen months later, the GenX came on the scene.

The company is upbeat on the future prospects of the Nano. “The Nano continues to innovate and evolve in line with the needs of its customers. Along with our aggressive marketing plans, we will continue to develop the brand further and also plan to expand our reach to 1,500 Outlets in 5 years. With a wider network and eye-catching marketing initiatives, we will be able to cater to larger audience and market”, the spokesperson said.