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K. Giriprakash

Bangalore , Dec. 23

EVEN as the auto sector is seeing one of its best years in the country, old favourites like Lancer, Palio and Sonata have turned out to be aberrations with sales plummeting to record levels.

Fiat Palio, which sold a total of 32,000 units in 2002, is expected to finish the year with around 11,000 units, while Mitsubishi Lancer's sales have dropped to 2,811 units during January-November compared with 5,927 units in 2002. Hyundai Sonata, which a year ago was averaging sales of around 350 per month, has dropped to 120 units a month.

Admitting that the sales during 2003 have been poor, Ms Soni Srivastav, General Manager for corporate communications for the CK Birla Group, which makes Lancers in India, said the new 1.8 lt Lancer variant expected to be launched in January 2004 could see a revival for the car maker.

"In very early 2004, we plan to launch Lancer 1.8," Ms Srivastav said.

The 1.8 lt Lancer will come with five-speed, tiptronic automatic transmission in both automatic and semi-automatic modes. The price range is expected to be between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 11 lakh.

What is more surprising is the fact that the mid-size C segment in which Lancer competes is expected to show a growth of around 30 per cent to cross the 1 lakh mark during 2003 compared with 2002. But Lancer, in spite of new variants and even a customise-your-own-Lancer concept called MyLancer has failed to whip up any excitement among the customers. But General Motors' Optra, Skoda's Octavia and Toyota's Corolla which compete in the same segment have posted extremely good sales.

Automobile analysts attribute fall in Lancer sales to overcrowding of the C segment where newer launches attract more customers. "Car makers can no longer bank of brand loyalty. Every new launch sees customers changing their loyalty," an auto analyst said.

Sources in Fiat said the fall in sales was largely because of the news about restructuring of the international operations of the company. "This affected the sales this year but we hope to bounce back next year," sources said. Palio's 1.2 and 1.6 lt variants which includes diesel versions is in the price band of Rs 3.5 lakh and Rs 4.5 lakh with the 1.9 lt diesel variant at around Rs 5 lakh.

Sources in Hyundai said fall in Sonata sales was because of the emergence of the C segment which has seen models like Octavia and Corolla eating into its market. Auto dealers claim that to a certain extent, launch of a lower priced model by the same carmaker has led to some amount of cannibalisation.

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