Cars In Demand: Maruti Vitara Brezza, Tata Nexon Top Segment Sales In October 2018

While the Vitara Brezza is still the undisputed leader of the segment, the Nexon, EcoSport, WR-V and TUV300 managed to improve on their September sales figures

• The Vitara Brezza crossed the 15,000 sales mark in October. It narrowly missed it in September.

• The WR-V has a 34.36 per cent month-on-month growth rate. No other manufacturer apart from Mahindra manages positive double digit figures.

• The Ford Freestyle is not a natural rival to these SUVs, but it is one of the most value-for-money packages. It certainly is the most loaded when it comes to safety tech on board in the crossover space.

The sales figures for the month of October are in and it takes only one glance at the data given in the table below to figure out that segment leader Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza continues its dominance in the sub-compact SUV and crossover segment. Other contenders like the Tata Nexon, Ford EcoSport, Honda WR-V, Mahindra TUV300 and Ford Freestyle are comparatively well too, with only the Freestyle not hitting the 2,000 mark.

Takeaways:

1. Vitara Brezza’s dominance: The Vitara Brezza did extremely well in September but fell short of the 15,000 sales mark. In October, the Maruti Suzuki-manufactured compact SUV did breach that mark, and in style, clocking 15,832 unit sales. The Vitara Brezza is the undisputed king of this segment with an almost 50 per cent market share. However, the Brezza’s market share has dropped compared to last year, when it was almost 55 per cent. While there are interesting options in this segment, we highly doubt any other sub-compact SUV or crossover will pip the Vitara Brezza any time soon.

2. Tata Nexon takes the second spot: The Nexon is an impressive product from Tata and that reflects in its sales figures. It has been a year since the Nexon was launched and the data shows that its sells more than 4,000 units consistently every month. While catching up with the Vitara Brezza is certainly out of the question, the Nexon is solid in the second spot.

3. Ford EcoSport’s consistent sales: Ford sold 3,957 units of the EcoSport in October, a 4.43 per cent bump over the 3,789 in September. Ford has consistently managed to sell around 4,000 units of the EcoSport of late, despite the EcoSport being knocked down from first to second and then to third on this list. This is evident from its average sales(4,205 units) over the last six months. In terms of average sales over last six months, the EcoSport is positioned pretty close to the Nexon (4,283 units). Constant updates have kept the EcoSport fresh and updated, which are the key to its consistent sales figures over the last five years.

4. Honda WR-V sells more units from September: Honda sold 3,523 units of the WR-V in October while that number was only 2,421 in September. That's a massive 34.36 per cent month-on-month growth, far more than any other car on the list. However, the sales spike can be attributed to discounts being offered on the WR-V by Honda.

5. Battle to avoid the last spot: The last two cars on the list are the Mahindra TUV300 and Ford Freestyle, selling 2,113 units and 1,929 units in October respectively. It was the other way around in September, with Ford selling 2,302 units of the Freestyle and Mahindra selling 1,786 units of the TUV300. However, the Freestyle is on this list only because of its crossover traits and value-for-money packaging. In terms of price, its top-spec variant is priced around the base-spec variants of all the other SUVs on this list.

All manufacturers that are present in the sub-compact SUV and crossover segments managed to have decent sales figures last month. Mahindra will soon shake up the segment with its upcoming sub-compact SUV, the S201. It is also no secret that Hyundai will soon enter the segment with the QXi SUV in April 2019. Once these two new offerings are in the market, it will be interesting to see if Maruti Suzuki can still rake in the impressive numbers it is currently doing with the Vitara Brezza.

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