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India November 2014: Hyundai i20 Elite above 10,000 sales

Hyundai Elite i20 India November 2014. Picture courtesy of zeegnition.comHyundai i20 Elite

* See the Top 60 best-selling models and Top 8 brands by clicking on the title *

The eye of the storm has passed for the Indian new car market: up 6% year-on-year in November to 208,668 registrations, bringing the year-to-date total to 2,306,418 deliveries, up 2% on 2013. Note these figures don’t include commercial vehicles and luxury brands. Brand-wise, local manufacturer Maruti is up a splendid 17% YOY to 100,024 sales and 46.1% market share, followed by Hyundai (+6%) and Honda up a mammoth 64% to 15,263 units and 7% share. Mahindra suffers at -18% just above Toyota (+19%) and Tata (+12%). The Top 4 best-selling nameplates are all Marutis but in a completely different order from October: Alto-Swift-Swift DZire-Wagon R. The Hyundai i20 Elite is back inside the Top 5 and sells over 10,000 units in a single month for the first time ever at 10,552 sales, leading all Hyundais in India. The Maruti Ciaz catches its breath after a flamboyant Top 10 ranking in October at #9: it is down 18% to a still impressive #12 and 5,232 deliveries as the Honda City reclaims the segment lead at #7 and 7,251 units sold. The Tata Zest gains one spot and improves its monthly volume record to 3,835 sales at #19.

Datsun Go India April 2014. Picture courtesy of motorbash.comIt’s official: the Datsun GO is dead in India.

But the biggest event of the month in India is arguably the sales death of the Datsun GO. Just as the newly relaunched brand is wreaking havoc in Russia and going from strength to strength in Indonesia and South Africa, the GO’s appalling crash test results released last month were a death sentence for the low-cost hatchback’s Indian sales. In November the GO sinks 63% to only 507 units. That’s just one fourth of what notorious Indian flop the Tata Nano sold in November (1,900) and lower than the Nano’s slowest ever month (509 units in November 2010). Once again, Indian consumers have rejected an affordable car that could have democratised car ownership, simply because the car is still a status symbol in India. Indian first car buyers would still rather spend double the price of a Datsun GO to acquire a car with a more prestigious badge in their view. For a thorough analysis of the complexities of the Indian car market, check out STRATEGY: Understanding the Indian car market.

Previous month: India October 2014: Maruti Ciaz takes off to Top 10

One year ago: India November 2013: Hyundai Grand i10 and Nissan Terrano up

Full November 2014 Top 60 models and Top 8 brands Ranking Tables below.

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