Renault India has recently announced that it has registered a decline of 4.6 per cent in its August sales with the company selling 3733 units as opposed to 3916 units delivered in the corresponding month of 2012. The company has blamed high inflation, increasing interest rates, fuel price and depreciating value of rupee for the low sales. In a statement, Renault India told that despite the stagnant market conditions, it has touched the sales mark of 45,986 units during the time frame of January to August 2013, rising over four folds as opposed to statistics of same period last year.
Commenting on the low sales, Renault India Executive Director, Marketing & Sales, Sumit Sawhney told, "Macroeconomic factors such as inflation, rising interest rates, high fuel prices, unstable stock markets and the devaluation of the rupee have been keenly felt in the Indian automobile industry, resulting in decreasing consumer demand and an overall de-growth of 9 per cent so far this year."
It must be noted that the model that is deriving growth of Renault in India is Duster with the company selling 2967 units in July 2013 out of the total sales figure of 3733 units. The other models of Renault India like Scala, Pulse, Fluence and Koleos have performed below par as compared to Sports Utility Vehicle, Duster. During the month of July 2013, the company has sold a paltry 10 units of Koleos while Pulse, Scala and Fluence accounted for a cumulative sales figure of 756.
On this development, Sawhney was quoted as saying, "The Duster has been our flagship product for just over a year, playing a crucial part not just in Renault's success in India, but also in spearheading the changing landscape of the Indian automobile industry. A growth of around 38 per cent in year-on-year Duster sales for July-August shows the continued desirability of the model among Indian customers, despite the shrinking market."
In the meanwhile, industry experts are of a view that the Indian car market is witnessing a torrid time with prominent auto makers registering a decline in their sales. In July, the car sales fallen for the eighth consecutive time thereby falling by 7.4 per cent as per the data released by Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).
Industry experts feel that the silver lining time for Renault Duster might soon get over because of the increasing competition in its segment. Ford's recently launched EcoSport model is gaining the attention of car buyers in India and it has been able to squeeze out the market share of Renault's flagship compact SUV. Duster has received an overwhelming response from price sensitive Indian buyers since its launch and is considered to be the best selling car for Renault India, till now. However, it will be interesting to see how long the car holds so as to derive the revenues for Renault.
