Tuesday, March 22, 2016
By Manoj Kumawat
Production of Honda Mobilio halted due to poor sales
Overwhelmed from the success of compact sedan Amaze and refreshed City sedan in Indian car market Japanese car maker Honda made successful entrance in MPV segment by launching Mobilio two years back in August 2014. Interestingly alike its predecessors the Mobilio also succeeded an encouraging response from Indian buyers and more than 3500 units of Mobilio were sold in Indian car market within few months of its launch. Unfortunately the success enjoyed by Mobilio in early months proved to be a success by chance because since then it started witnessing decline in sales in January where only 441 units of Mobilio were sold in India the number came down to 226 units in month of February this year.
Industry experts believe that the reason behind poor sales of Mobilio is due to tough competition existing in segment especially with Renault Lodgy, Maruti Suzuki Ertiga and Toyota Innova. According to reports halting of Honda Mobilio’s production does not mean that Japanese car maker will phase out the MPV from market. This suspension is for few months and buyers can buy Mobilio from any of its dealers across the country. For this dealers have substantial stock of Mobilio available with them.
It is also rumored that by suspending the production of Mobilio car maker wishes to make way for BR-V which was showcased during the Indian Auto Expo 2016 and is expected to launch in India during the middle of this year. As BR-V is developed on same platform which is used for developing Mobilio and therefore decision regarding suspension of Mobilio should not be seen with a surprise. Because if Mobilio did not perform well after launch of BR-V it will be definitely phased out form market, this however is hidden in future and will be known by the end of this year.
